Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet’s exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence, only those who can conquer their own fear will survive.
Release date: October 22, 2021 (USA)
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Budget: 165 million USD
Hey guys Merick here. This is an honest review of the movie “DUNE” released 10/22/2021. Remember this is just one man’s humble opinion of this movie and you may come to your own conclusions and I respect that.
Also, I watched this movie streaming on HBO and my girlfriend’s nephews were very distracting but the visuals were amazing. This movie should be one you watch in the theater and if your girlfriend’s nephews do not know how to behave or her sister, leave them at home lol.
The opening scenes in this movie are massive. The world-building is epic. Most of the appealing aspects of this film are the special effects and very artistic cinematic elements, CGI, detailed costumes, larger-than-life stars, and world-building.
When I say world-building, especially as a person who did not read the original Dune books or classic movie, I mean the creation of completely new society and cultures and technology and solar system and economic systems and social constructs and casts. This world-building will draw you in and make you ask: “What just happened? What does this mean?”
The conflict between the major houses and the empire and the greed for power is based on a substance called “spice” that makes space travel possible.
Immediately you are shown there are the good-rich, elite-overlords, benevolent dictators (House Atreides,) and the evil elite-overlords House Harkonnen led by the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen.
We know he is the evil bad guy right away because he is morbidly obese and he has a Russian name. But honestly, they did a great job establishing the villains with very little effort.
The scenes with desert worms are fantastic and the whole struggle for survival with the elements is an engaging plot element. They really do create a hostile world that makes the struggle for society to survive against hostile political enemies and climate and natural predators make the movie exciting.
There are some creepy elements between Paul, the chosen one, and his mother. She just gave me some incestuous vibe. Like she did something bad to him and she is just super possessive of him. It did not feel like a mother-and-son relationship.
My negative criticism was that I did not find any very likable characters in this movie except for Jason Momoa’s character who, spoiler alert! Do not read further if you do not want spoilers, he is killed off in the movie.
Paul is likable in the sense that he is very competent but he’s also a very rich entitled young man and heir to a dynasty.This makes me very neutral about him.
The ending to the movie makes you feel like you watched a two and a half hour long intro and ends with a stupid obvious line “This is only the beginning.” Well obviously it’s part one of at least a trilogy and the studio wants to make a lot more money, so this is just the beginning. It comes off as cheesy writing on that part, to me.
Conclusion I would watch this movie at the theater. It would be worth it for the special effects and huge scenes alone.
I will probably go and watch every one of these films from now on unless they “Last Jedi” me, in that case, I will check out.
I will give this movie a solid B- and call it “Dune Part One The long intro”. I will definitely go to the theater for Part 2. Again I recommend you watch this movie at the theater
Try reading all the books and watching the original movie then write another review. I grew up reading the Dune series, I might be kinda biased. I still have the original books.
Yes I agree same with Gregg’s comment I need to read the original books.
Merick, it’s too bad you’ve never read the book. This is one of the few “book to movie” movies that I’ve seen where they’ve done a great job of dealing with an outstanding book. By that I mean that they have been true in following the story in the book. Of course, that means that they have included most of the details from the book (think the scene where Paul killed the hunter-killer drone) which drives the movie to a greater length. So, this had to be part 1 of 3 (or 4) or the movie would be between 8 and 10 or 12 hours long: it’s a BIG book. I’m a fairly fast reader and I think it took me a couple of days (at probably 6-8 hours per day) to read.
I think they did a great job in character development on Dr. Hue but they’ve probably neglected Hawat, the Mentat. Hopefully they will do more with him in the next movie.
I’ve got to read the books this shows my ignorance on the plot. The cinematics were excellent.
FWIW…..SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE BOOKS….Duncan comes back as a ghoul in Dune Messiah, probably the 3rd movie that will be produced. This Dune, according to what I’ve read, is just the first half of the first book. A lot of setup for the rest of the series.
I have to read the books now and hide my shame lol.