Visual masterpieces with intense, atmospheric stories in fantasy genres don't always go and win everybody out. It's difficult to make movies without the risk of it tumbling down hard and leaving a mark on your reputation. Enter Denis Villenevue. Man hasn't made a bad film yet and don't think he will anytime soon. Dune isn't a perfect movie, but it's a marvel(pun isn't intended) of an achievement.
The film is based on Frank Herbert's Dune books. Which is actually really difficult to adapt considering it is densely packed with a lot of material. So much lore, character backstories, conquest campaigns, and more. David Lynch tried adapting with one movie it and it got mixed reception, plus that movie underwent some troubling production problems. There was a TV show released around the early 2000s, which was more faithful to the book, but nobody I know talks about that to this day.
The 2021 adaptation is nothing short of amazing, even if I have some gripes with how the approach to telling its story is, well a bit more condensed. Like, it feels as if there are some missing pieces here and there that would make otherwise a great origin story. But 80% of the time, it was an amazing experience to watch.
Right after Paramount Pictures failed to get a movie production in place, the rights to the film went to Legendary Pictures of Warner Bros. Villeneuve was in talks to direct the movie. Though he wasn't ready to direct the film till he was done with his other projects like Arrival and Blade Runner 2049. He assured that he wasn't backing out entirely.
Right after 2018, the film was going through planning with many of the people who've worked with Villeneuve on his previous projects returning to work, that includes editor, Joe Walker and Visual Effects supervisor, Paul Lambert. Sadly Roger Deakens wasn't present for the project, his replacement was Greig Fraser. Composer for the film was Hans Zimmer.
The film is planned to be split into 2-parts, each having a runtime around 150 minutes or so. Villeneuve also wrote the screenplay with Eric Roth and Jon Spaihts. He stated that he did respect Lynch's adaptation but wanted to focus more on the faithful visual presentation for his film.
With principal photography done in Hungary and Jordan, the film later began production with most of the shooting being done in United Arab Emirates. Filming was done somewhere in 2020, but it wasn't due for release till next year. Of course, the pandemic had en effect on the film's release, as it was delayed from its late 2020 release. It was later promoted to be released for both streaming and movie theaters in 2021.
Dune has the inner workings of a phenomenol movie that is concise when it comes to tellings its audiences what is going down, while showcasing breathtaking visual spectacles, taking the time to create amazing set pieces and mise en scenes. That is the director's usual trademark when it comes to making his movies.
But Denis Villenevue isn't only known for just spectacles, breathtaking visual effects, and cinematography, he delivers very well on the storytelling front. This is a condensed story compared to the source material, so you're not getting everything you need to know, but what goes on in the screen greatly contextualizes the events unfolding from one scene after the other.
And thank the gods(or god if you're monotheist) that Hans Zimmer skipped out on scoring Tenet just for this film. Like, man made a great choice to score such an ambitious project, knowing his music will add so much to the cinematic experience.
This film had a budget of over 160 million USD and none of it seemed like it was spared, everything seen in the movie just oozes with AAA Hollywood production that doesn't overstay its welcome nor deems in quality in any other scene. It's a beautifully shot and produced cinema.
With all that being said though, I do have some pointers regarding some flaws here and there. Being an ambitious film, it might have skimped out on a few important details regarding how the story plays out here in contrast to how the book did. Watching it for 140 minutes, I couldn't help but think that a few key information were withheld.
While we did get to know the relationships of each characters very well, a key omission, maybe not even something that hinted well enough was the Lady Jessica, and her relationship with her father. Who plays as a big factor with the story. It would been a nice added tension to the already dense atmosphere and emotional themes to the story, had they at least hinted about it.
There's not much told about the emperor other than the fact that he has a "somewhat" strained relationship with the emperor. Really wanted to know more about the emperor and why he is seen in such light in the film. I won't spoil much, but he is important to the story as well.
Then there's the fact that some of the characters from Atreidis that I've seen, haven't had their faith revealed in the end at all. Just left for us to figure out what happened. And finally the ending, it left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.
I have some pointy things to say about the film, but don't get me wrong, am glad I got to watch it. And I hope that part 2 finally fixes things as well as take what the first part did and raise that to a crazier level.
Dune's a beautiful looking film, one I want to watch with my friends again maybe in a big theater somwehere. It has an intense story and atmosphere, breathtaking visuals, amazing score, some of the best choreography and film editing I've seen in awhile.
This is just the beginning, it might not have perfected itself as the bonafide perfect Dune film, but part 2 can surely fix all that and it better be, you don't always get a chance to make the Dune movie that everybody wants to remember by.
