Review of Dune (2021) by Cainezen — 22 Oct 2021

I'm as conflicted on this film as the Harkonnen and Atreides are with each other. While I understand the Director is trying to initiate world building and plan for a multiple-film franchise, the golden rule is that each film has to stand on it's own.

The pace of the film could have been a bit faster in some parts and a bit slower in others. For instance, we get a lot of time with Paul in that tent but the entire setup of the Atreides and the Spice Production was over in about 15 minutes.

A few scenes cut to show the passage of some time and Leto getting reports of sabotage, broken equipment, and so forth could have been done in a way that covered that time more appropriately so it didn't feel rushed.

A few cuts of Paul interacting with locals a bit more to establish this believe in Mahdi. Otherwise the first and second act feel a bit laborious and honestly leave the finale in the third act feeling rushed and instead leaving me with a fizzle.

The fight at the end with the Fremen warrior was slow, and without tension whatsoever. In today's film landscape with high impact action films, if you're going to have a knife fight, it needs to be at or better than the best fight sequence out there, particularly for a budget of 165 million.

Buatista and Zendaya's talents were wasted only serving as minor build-up to the next film. There were ways to include them to show the importance of both characters. So while I love the visuals and the modern digital impact on the cinematography, the story telling and character development (the best part of the Dune books) is still lacking somewhat.

I mean Paul and his mother got quality time, but Leto felt empty and with a talent like Oscar Isaacs, that has to be a Direction issue. Overall I say a bit above mediocre. I'm hoping the next film is better, if it gets greenlit.

This series will likely be evaluated as a whole rather than individual parts because thus far, the start is not what I'd hoped as an avid Dune fan.