In the year 10,191 after Space Guild, desert planet Arrakis, nicknamed “Dune”, is the only source of ‘Spice’, a special liquid that enables interstellar travel. Its main miners, the house of Harkonnen, is replaced with the house of Atreides, on the orders of the Galactic Emperor. The young lad Paul Atreides arrives to Arrakis and has trouble adjusting to its warm climate, and is accompanied by his father Leto, mother Jessica with special mental powers, Mentat Thufir Hawat, guard warrior Duncan Idaho and others. The Harkonnens stage a surprise attack on the headquarters at night, since Dr. Yueh disconnected the shields, and kill many, including Leto, taking back power over Arrakis. Leto and Jessica disappear and hide in the desert, where they form a friendship with the native Fremen tribe, including girl Chani.
After the failures with Lynch’s “Dune” (which is more coherent in the pirated, unapproved 3-hour cut, though) and Harrison’s eponymous TV series, the director Denis Villeneuve, a new patron of Sci-Fi movies, finally adapted Frank Herbert’s famous Sci-Fi novel the right way, achieving probably the best possible “Dune” film. This edition is far more faithful to the novel, though not to the fullest (sadly, some of Paul Atreides’ philosophical contemplations were left out, though they could have left them in just in the form of texts on the screen), and abounds with creative solutions in creating such a futuristic world with unusual gadgets and designs, yet follows only the first half of the story, and thus the uninitiated may find the ending like a “to be followed”-bait. The whole film is magnificently ceremonially clinical: everything in it, from the technical aspects up to the actors, is so refined, filtered and micromanaged that it became sterile, even the characters who became mechanical and too lifeless. Out of some twenty characters, only three feel truly alive and genuine: Lady Jessica (casting the brilliant Rebecca Ferguson was a stroke of genius), who at first feels too passive, but later on proves to be a real lion during crisis situations, and is in the best sequence of the entire film (the one where, after being abducted, she manages to free her mouth and use it, since her special mental powers create a voice that can command anyone to do anything. The villain quickly covers her mouth, but she moves her head away and just says “Stop!”, which is enough to hypnotize the villain into freezing); the selfish bad guy Vladimir Harkonnen; and the sympathetic, chubby Thufir Hawtat, Mentat and commander of Atreides' Personal Guards (great Stephen McKinley Henderson). The classic story of scramble for power and growing up during crisis times has its moments, but overall, Villeneueve seems more interested in setting up neat, aesthetic images than actually creating thoroughbred, emotional or engaging characters, resulting in "Dune" feeling dry at times: everything here is done right, and yet, it simply has no flavour.
Grade:++
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