Dune Review
Thanks to Covid-19 I haven't been able to go to the cinema for two whole years and even when restrictions eased there was so few movies out that there was nothing I was willing to sink my hard earned money into. Well, that all changed with the release of Dune. Only a Sci-fi epic could bring me back to the big screen.
Visually stunning
You have to experience Dune at the cinema to fully appreaciate the visual spectacle that it is. Director Denis Villeneuve is a master of cinematography with every shot conveying the scale of the world we've been transported to. The costumes are incredible and do an excellent job of making the societies depicted in Dune feel like living breathing ones.
From the set design to the SFX, Dune is stunning. Like Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049 it sweeps you up in vast landscapes that take you to another time and world. The deserts of Arakis are depicted amazingly, with the world coming across as one of beauty yet incredibly dangerous. Everything feels like a living breathing and believable place. If any film deserves an Oscar for visual effects its certainly this one.
World building in a movie like this can be bogged down by too much info dumping but Dune doesn't do that at all. I hate to admit this, but I have never seen the original David Lynch movie, never read the books and never saw the tv adaptations. I went into this movie totally blind. All I knew of Dune was that it was a sci-fi epic on a par or as some fans would say a story that's even more important to the genre than Star Wars.
The battle scenes are fantastic and I love the melee combat. Unlike say Star Wars there's little in the way of lasers or guns pew pewing constantly. Instead thanks to the incredibly intriguing technology of the Dune universe armies prefer to fight with swords and daggers. These scenes are awesome to watch and I wanted to see more!
The Plot
I went into this movie totally not knowing the plot of Dune, my wife knew far more than I but I wasn't lost or confused by the plot at all. Essentially it's a bit like Game of Thrones with multiple Great Houses competing against one another for the attentions of the Emperor.
Essentially the Emperor is jealous of House Atredies and worried about their growing power. To that end he essentially sets them up to fail by granting them custodianship of the planet Arakis, the home of the most precious resource in the galaxy, Spice. This substance is used for many many things including interstellar travel.
I won't spoil the plot but needless to say I love it, even the parts where I wish there was a bit more information given about certain areas espeically the powers that some of the characters possess.
The music composed by Hans Zimmer is exceptional and really puts the audience into the action. It's subtle at times, stirring at others and somehow conveys that we are watching events that are set thousands of years in the future. It blew me away and is probably his best score in years.
The only disappointing thing about this movie is that it is not a complete story. It does say Dune part one when the movie begins but dang it I want the rest of the story now! Unfortunately, the second part will no doubt be years away and thanks to bloody Covid it's yet to be seen whether Warner Bros will greenlight it. They'd be mad not too.
Overall score 9/10