Cindy Prascik's Review of Dune

My dear reader(s), this weekend gave me a rare bit of time for watching and writing, so I decided to check out Denis Villeneuve's latest, Dune.

Spoiler level here will be mild, nothing you wouldn't know from the trailers.

Chronicling the grim interplanetary shenanigans of some absurdly beautiful people.

I will surprise no one by admitting I did not: a) revisit the source material, or b) revisit the original, before diving into Dune 2021. In fact, I remembered so little about the 1984 movie that I had to resort to IMDB to remember who was in it. No, this weekend's choices came down to going to the cinema for over two and a half hours of James Bond, or staying home for over two and a half hours of Dune. I was equally excited (or not) for both, so - as is my norm these days - I opted to stay home. Having said that, I really wanted to like Dune, and was disappointed to find that impossible.

First, though, the good.

Dune boasts a magnificent score by Hans Zimmer. It grabbed me from the very first minute and never let go. The film is visually stunning, the special effects are nifty, and the fight choreography is quite sharp. The cast features a bunch of folks you probably know and love from other things, which leads us to...

...the bad.

Bad acting that is. With the exception of Jason Momoa, who always manages to entertain, everyone is either wooden as a marionette or overacting wildly. No real in-between. (And, no, I'm not saying Momoa is the best actor here by any means, just that he fares best with what he's got to work with.) It's nice to see David Dastmalchian turning up in everything these days, though. The movie is pretentious and far too long. I imagine you're meant to be entranced by the relationships and conflicts among characters and groups, but...nah. I was bored by the 30-minute mark, and completely checked out with about 45 minutes left. With a mighty display of will, I finished it, but it definitely didn't have anything close to my full attention for that last third(ish). Maybe James Bond could have done better.

Dune clocks in at a bloated 155 minutes and is rated PG13 for "sequences of strong violence, some disturbing images, and suggestive material."

Dune is a feast for the eyes, but fails to engage otherwise. Of a possible nine Weasleys, Dune gets three.

Dune is now playing in cinemas worldwide, and streaming on HBO Max until mid-November.