Review: Dune – Part 1

Timothee Chalamet plays Paul, son of Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac). Duke Leto is charged with ruling over the desert planet Arrakis, home of a substance called ‘spice’, which is in high demand particularly for the purposes of space travel. Soon after Duke Leto, Paul, and Lady Jessica Atreides (Rebecca Ferguson) arrive on Arrakis, trouble starts with rival family Harkonnen attempting to take Arrakis back by force. Jason Momoa plays Duncan Idaho, who trains Paul in swordplay, Josh Brolin is Gurney Halleck, Duke Leto’s ‘Warmaster’ and another mentor/instructor to Paul. Stellan Skarsgaard turns up as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, the chief villain of the piece, with Dave Bautista having a small role as Baron Harkonnen’s nephew. Elsewhere we have Charlotte Rampling as Reverend Mother Mohaim, Javier Bardem as Stilgar leader of the Fremen tribe, and Zendaya as a Fremen named Chani.

 

Look, can we all just finally admit that Frank Herbert’s novel Dune was never meant to be a motion picture? There, that won’t set people off immediately. Pitchforks at the ready, everyone. Director Denis Villeneuve (“Prisoners”, “Sicario”, “Arrival”, “Blade Runner 2049”) and his co-writers Jon Spaihts (“Prometheus”, “Doctor Strange”) and Eric Roth (“Forrest Gump”, “The Insider”) make a slightly better fist of it than David Lynch did back in 1984, but the results are still ponderous BS. It’s like a bad, pretentious episode of “Star Trek” stretched to damn near three hours as part one of a story split into two halves.

 

It doesn’t help that lead actor Timothee Chalamet gives a flat, smug, and mumbly performance throughout. Sadly, most of the other actors mumble and whisper their way through things. Of course all the explosions are plenty loud as is the frustrating modern norm of filmmaking. As for the story, it's not incoherent. You can follow the basics of it. However like “Tenet”, it requires more concentration than it’s actually worth. It’s a shame because Villeneuve is clearly a damn good visual director and normally a good storyteller. The story here just isn’t involving, the tone thoroughly unappealing. I didn’t care about these characters or the world they inhabited, and combined with the dreadfully muted tone and agonising pace, it left me entirely cold.

 

Some of the performances are decent but Jason Momoa, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin are the only ones who aren’t in some way affected or pretentious. In fact, Brolin takes the interesting strategy of grounding his characterisation on planet Earth, despite the film not being set here. It’s good, solid work. Oscar Isaac tries really hard in the same vein too but to much lesser results. Bardem and Momoa are such inimitable presences that they’re thankfully able to escape the tone. I also thought Charlotte Rampling, Rebecca Ferguson, and Stellan Skarsgaard were good, despite their being somewhat more affected by the tone of the thing. Skarsgaard’s Jabba meets Cenobite-like villain is really interesting and creepy in an otherwise not at all interesting film. Sadly, he’s underused. As for Zendaya, she spends the majority of the film waiting to be integrated into it (or on the set of an unrelated perfume ad), despite being the film’s narrator. Once she does pop up, she largely has the same angry/bored facial expression as always. She smiles briefly at one point, that was nice. One would hope she actually gets a character to play in the second part.

 

The film’s action is pretty to look at, but just as unengaging as the plot because there is no motor running under this thing. As for the ending, if you’re gonna split a story into two films fair enough, but please give us endings to both halves. The ending we get here is woefully underwhelming.

 

A truly visually stunning piece of crushing, epic boredom. A whole lot of wonderful visuals and landscapes put to utter waste. Some of the supporting cast is good, I didn’t care. I can see why hardcore sci-fi fans and lovers of the novel might like this, otherwise I don’t see the fuss at all.   

 

Rating: C-