Review of Dune (2021) by Wintx — 27 Oct 2021

This is such a difficult film to comment on, because like one's own child, you still love it dearly. For me it couples absolute brilliance and passion for big screen film making with head shaking missteps in story, character and some areas of weightless dialogue and exposition. An absolutely amazing, boundary crushing score, yet abused in its over saturation. I've seen the film 3 times so far. Imax+Amos. Imax+??? and HBOMax. DO NOT SEE THIS ON YOUR TV FOR FIRST TIME. It was absolutely made to be seen, dare I say, ONLY on the big screen, with the best sound system.

I'm a lifelong sci-fi fan (thanks, Dad) in my 6th decade. The Dune books have been read dozens of times. Will a fan's expectations ever be met? Probably not. But this movie is close. I love all of Villeneuve's films and style of revealing a story vs telling one. The efforts and commitment made by him and his production crew is always greatly admired. I think Warner's hesitation to give him the green light for the entire book at once is a gigantic miscalculation and has had an effect on why part 1 feels the way it does. Maybe once after some reflection with lessons learned, part 2 will bring it all together and be the masterpiece I know we all want it to be -- hopefully releasing it sooner than later.