Review: Dune (2021)

Directed by Denis Villeneuve
Dune opens with a discordant sound that really sets the tone for the film and the vivid blue Warner Bros credits are a stark colour contrast to the ochre tones that dominate the rest of the film. As usual with Denis Villeneuve films, the visual in spectacle is assured and measured. Quick cuts and flashy technique are mostly eschewed for a stately pace befitting a story that tells a dynastic tale of betrayal and family. The science fiction is almost an aside, we could be watching Game of Thrones just set in and around Qarth, only a card on the screen says we are in the year 10191 (and that’s about 23,267 AD) so this is actually the far future. And yet, like Star Wars we have the overriding feeling of “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….” – there’s no gleaming tech here, no flashy lights. There aren’t even pew-pew lasers or lightsabers; people use actual swords! It’s like Star Wars, but for grown-ups.

As the film opens, we see Chani (Zendaya) in Paul’s dream but it’s Paul Atreides (Timothy Chalamet) waking up that is the start of this, hopefully, two-part retelling of Frank Herbert’s seminal work of science fiction. The film is packed with star talent. We have Oscar Isaac as Paul’s father Leto Atreides; Rebecca Ferguson as Paul’s mother, Lady Jessica; Josh Brolin as the surly Gurney Hallack, House Atreides weapons master and Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho, the Swordmaster for House Atreides (and that’s just House Atreides, there are more casting treats to come…

I don’t want to spoil anything for readers, so I won’t go into the plot overmuch. There has been at least one gender swap from the books (as far as I remember) and roles have shifted in importance but the film follows the first book pretty closely. Suffice to say that, in most general terms, the yucky House Harkonnen have been dispossessed of Arakis, a desert planet, and it has been given to noble House Atreides in a galactic-scale turn of largesse by the emperor (please excuse my caricature). Paul feels intimately linked with Arrakis and its people and there are prophecies that he is the saviour of the planet among the natives, called the Fremen, who live in the shifting sands and for whom water is the most sacred of elements. Being given Arrakis is a bit of a poisoned chalice for Duke Leto and his family but how far the betrayal goes is beautifully layered in the film.

Anyway, on the technical front, Dune looks and sounds amazing. The design of the spaceships, buildings, sandworms and ornithopters looks great, like the best of Chris Foss and Boris Vallejo mixed with a bit of Jean Giraud (Moebius) from the 70s, and swathes of sand and dust coat them until there’s not a trace of CG. This stuff looks real enough that I would almost believe them if they said it was all practical. The acting is great but there is an element of staginess about it where it seems like people are speaking portentous quotes rather than conversing. I do have something of a problem with the scale sometimes too. Dune is a planet and yet people seem to meet up pretty quickly so we get no impression of time passing. Because of the languorous pace for much of the film, this feels a bit off to me but, hey. I’m a guy who can lose his family in a supermarket and spend ages hunting for them up and down the aisles…

This first part of Dune is a monumental achievement, and I really hope it succeeds so the other half of the film can be made. Because of covid restrictions, Warner has seen fit to make it available on their streaming service HBOMax, which will mean it will be instantly piratable in the best quality. I’ve already seen it three times at the cinema, I hope others do too.

I can’t quite give Dune a 5/5 rating. As I said, I have a problem with the fact that things are all too convenient (and a couple of things that I don’t want to spoil for be you) but it certainly gets a really high 4/5 from me.