Spice spice baby
Denis Villeneuve’s Dune is, above all else, an adaptation. It is not “adapted from Dune by Frank Herbert,” it is “an adaptation of Dune by Frank Herbert” (or, rather, the first half of one), if you catch my drift. It is the 2020’s equivalent of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings: an impressively executed, beautiful, well-acted movie that was never designed to be a standalone piece of film, but to bring to life a world-famous doorstopper.
Thus I think it is fair for me to open this review with my relationship with Dune the book: I have none. I know very little about it except some cultural osmosis. I’ve never read it — in fact, I haven’t read much grown-up sci-fi, period. But Dune has never been near the top of my list for the genre: Whenever it comes up in conversation, people who have read it, even people who love it, drown it in equivocation: “You have to be prepared for some weird shit.” — “It’s got a great story, but parts of it will make you raise your eyebrows.” — “It’s maybe too dense with lore and worldbuilding, but worth the effort.” Okay, sure. I’m not really buying it. Also, who sets their galactic, multi-century sci-fi epic in a desert? I don’t like sand. It’s coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.
Like Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, Dune sometimes feels like a PowerPoint presentation of characters, places, and events. Tons of names and lore details tossed out either because fans mandate it or because it’s required for future plot events to make sense. I imagine it is deeply satisfying for people who know and love Herbert’s Dune. And it’s unquestionable that parts of it are very cool and well-rendered. It’s also true that it feels like a whole lot of effort in service of too little payoff — a byproduct of being a “Part One” and having one of those literary plots that’s high on incident and low on story progression. Too much squeeze; not enough juice. That’s for round two.
My solution was to try and just let it all wash over me, details be damned. But as much as I tried, the movie doesn’t really let you just be swept away. Dramatic moments hinge on characters we barely know and lore about various factions. And, I will very much give Dune that it does a great job of visually coding its four main groups: the Normal Dudes, the Bald Albino Nutjobs, the Desert Nomads, and the Amoral Imperials. I never had any doubt about which group any character belonged to, though that did not mean I always understood who was doing what and why.
If you are reading this, you probably know the basics of Dune. In fact, I’d wager you know more about Dune than I do. But here’s a summary as I understand it. First, the most important world detail that is either not explained or so quickly comes and goes that it didn’t stick in my head: There are no computers in Dune’s world because of some sort of past AI revolution. Thus, calculations are done by hand, and the best way to do this is to get really high on a hyper-cognition drug called “spice” that can only be found on the desert planet of Arrakis. The product is thus a crucial piece of the wheels of modern industry, and Arrakis is a hotbed for violent insurrection. The planet is inhabited and operated by an imperial power commandeering sacred land of native people, and there’s squabbling over just which colonizing faction gets the power and profit of spice export. You don’t even need to squint to see the parallels between spice on Arrakis and oil in the Middle East. The imagery and even the story very much back the allegory up.
Parts of the lore and background story strike me as very stupid, or at least very uncinematic. The whole inciting incident is a confusing bit of politics: The Amoral Imperials take Arrakis rights away from the Bald Albino Nutjobs and give it to the Normal Dudes, but it’s all a ploy to secretly give it back to the Bald Albino Nutjobs and to take the Normal Dudes down a notch? Seems like a lot of work and a bit obtuse as the entryway to one of the supposed great sci-fi epics.
The spice drug itself, the central object of the drama, is kind of weird, too. Shoutout to my brother Will who talked me through a few of the finer details before we watched Part 2 together, but, as presented in the movie, the drug doesn’t really make too much sense. It makes you smart, but also you trip balls, and sometimes you can see the future and/or past. The nomad Fremen are constantly on a low-level spice high, yet despite the perceptive power I would expect this to grant them, they’re mostly clueless to the machinations affecting them and their world.
Also the hero is just a guy named Paul. There have been worse names for protagonists, but it was hilarious 100% of the time when some dramatic declaration was made about the chosen one, and he’s just Paul. You may as well call him “Rick from Home Depot” or “Bubba.” One of my favorite scenes in the movie is a montage of a prophetic vision of a holy war in the future. I was deeply into it, and then it ends with Zendaya staring at the camera and saying with all of the acting skill she could muster, in the most epic tenor possible… “Paul.” Like the main character’s name is some dramatic revelation. I burst out laughing. (Thankfully, Part 2 has a parallel scene with Anya Taylor-Joy saying “Paul” into the camera. Assuming Dune Messiah actually gets made, whether or not a beautiful woman say “Paul” directly to the audience is the lone criteria by which I will evaluate the film.)
My favorite bit of both worldbuilding and filmmaking is the giant sandworms. I love the idea of Lovecraftian creatures so terrifying that they disrupt basic life on the planet; the ground crumbling beneath inhabitants’ feet. And the way they’re filmed is terrific: giant, quivering, planet-reshaping orifices and phalluses, in case it wasn’t clear that this whole thing is also a coming-of-age story for our pal Paul.
The Part 1 story ends just as soon as the movie really starts picking up momentum. It amped me up for Part 2 because of how hard it teases payoff on setup. I guess this is a structural flaw to multi-part films; if I were looking at Dune Part 1 as a standalone thing, I’d punish it pretty harshly for its cuckoo barely-half-of-a-plot. There are some good scenes, like the death of Duncan Idaho (Jason Mamoa) and our first sighting of a sand worm, but I mostly felt teased. It’s strangely light on actual narrative thrust but also rushed — somehow a total of about seven total events happen across two and a half hours, yet it’s still choppy.
The acting is decent, but not to the level you’d hope given the talent within the ensemble. Timothee Chalamet doesn’t really sell me on Paul, though the unsympathetic characterization in the screenplay is more of a problem there than the acting. Zendaya is eye-poppingly beautiful and ethereal, but she really sounds just like Zendaya, star of 2012 Disney Channel Original Movie Frenemies, whenever she talks (very few times in Part 1).
Aside the lead and the romantic interest, the cast in this really is quite busted: Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Dave Bautista, Javier Bardem, David Dastmalchian, and Film Twitter darling Stephen McKinley Henderson are all solid. And then every filler role is some outstanding character actor. The star power popping off the screen is never less than dazzling.
The real show-stealer is Rebecca Ferguson as Paul’s mother Lady Jessica, who is a part of a secret society of mind control witches that have tendrils all throughout the universe. I find the organization and their goals to be a little bit implausible and hard to wrap my head around, but having Ferguson as their face automatically makes them interesting.
Through all these reactions to Dune’s world and the characters, I’ve noted barely a thought on the craft and scope of the filmmaking itself. It’s a testament to Villeneuve’s steady hand and prodigious skill that I can take Dune at face value. The budget is all up there on there on the screen: huge, sandy vistas; nifty ships and effects; brutal battles; awe-inspiring production. It’s not nearly as weird as it could and probably should be — Villeneuve’s storytelling and imagery are on the mechanical side for some far-out source material, though this probably helps with the accessibility — nor is it as lavishly beautiful as Villeneuve’s partnerships with Roger Deakins. But Dune is still a work of a consummate and exquisite professionalism.
In fact, I would be pleased if Villeneuve continued taking existing worlds and stories and rendering them for the screen with fastidious, lovely precision. (I frankly can’t imagine anyone better for tackling Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn books, for example.) I may be a bit cold to Dune as an overly-prescriptive, po-faced messiah story adaptation, but I respect the hell out of the craft.
- Review Series: Denis Villeneuve
Is It Good?
Good (5/8)
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8 replies on “Dune (2021)”
Largely agree, though I think I liked it a little better than you did; it’s very much a PART ONE and alongside Part Two (which is a mite better), you have a complete movie, but not therefore necessarily one that needs to be or even benefits from being five and a half hours long. “It sure is a Desert Planet!” I continue to be baffled by what drives the kids crazy about these movies; my working hypothesis is that it’s founded on the twin needs to have big-budget spectacle because that’s what we’ve been trained to watch while latching ahold of anything that seems passionate and not a product of the IP Factory (though this is still a product of the IP Factory), and Avatar was just taking so long.
As for poor young Duke Atreides, hey, the founder of the world’s largest religion was just named Paul!
Oh, and the fact that it’s a little cold and affectless translates towards stereotypes of “seriousness in cinema” for a lot of people, too.
I do sort of regret that the Dunes are one of those phenomena where it feels like I have way more sneeringly mean things to say about it than nice ones, because I do like them. Neither one is in spitting distance of BR 2049, though, which is cold, because it’s Villeneuve and his filmmaking talent may be deep but it is exceedingly narrow, but it’s cold for vastly more identifiable reasons that feel like a humane entrypoint into K and his world, rather than just a stick of unemotional future history to beat you over the head with for hours. (Helps that Ryan Gosling’s ability to evoke depth while standing still is several light years beyond Timothee Chalamet’s skills at the same thing, and the hollowness is meaningful rather than actively working at cross-purposes to the role of “fiery charismatic messiah.”)
Saint Paul was NOT the Founder of Christianity – in this Michael Keaton movie metaphor, Saint Paul is the man who took this show on the road, despite showing up late to the Party.
On the other hand, kudos for that excellent ATTACK OF THE CLONES gag.
In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Jim Carrey opines “sand is overrated.” I didn’t think that one was well-known enough to casually drop in this review though.
As much as I’ve enjoyed catching up with Villeneuve’s films, I’m with you on his ascendant reputation among Zoomers (at least the filmbro types my little sister knows, including one she dates, who semi-jokingly offered to sell an organ should Villeneuve need more funding). But I imagine us Nolan-heads were pretty insufferable 15 years earlier.
“You have to be prepared for some weird shit.”
You do, but I think Frank Herbert is courting readers for whom this is an endorsement, not equivocation! XD
If you weren’t prepared for some weird **** in the first place then I’m reasonably sure Science Fiction is NOT the genre for you (You might want to give Fantasy, Horror and a few other classics a miss too).
To be clear, I’m not against weird stuff in my stories; quite the opposite. But I’ve heard it cited as more of a criticism than praise for Herbert’s Dune, though that’s been focused on the books later in the series.