Review of Dune (2021) by Rufusvegas — 29 Oct 2021

The film is beautiful to look at and listen to, and the casting is surprisingly strong (I was initially sceptical of some of the choices). Unfortunately the treatment of the source material, whilst maintaining the main plot points, isn't great.

Spoilers from here:

Pivotal characters such as Use and Thuffir receive extremely little screen time, meaning that their relationship to Paul and the Atreides is inconsequential to the film. This is particularly glaring when use commits his betrayal, which simply doesn't carry the emotional weight that it should. Similarly, the machinations of the empire are barely given lip service, much of the motivations for the driving factors in the plot are reduced to single lines delivered casually by key characters in scenes that were probably quite heavily edited.

This film works as a visual accompaniment to the book, but is weak as a stand alone movie.

Watching this film made me yearn to see what could've been done if Dune were a trilogy, rather than a two part.