In Dune, the 2021 film by director Denis Villeneuve, which is closely based on the 1965 book by Frank Herbert, Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) is a young man born on the planet Caladan, a lush, earth-like planet in the distant future (22,000 years in the future, 10,200 years after the Imperium was established, according to the book.)
He's the son of a Duke (Oscar Isaac) and has a destiny ahead of him as the future head of his family, the House Atreides. But he has an even greater destiny ahead of him that he can't even dream of.
His mother (Rebecca Ferguson) however, can, and has dreamt it, as a member of the mystical quasi-religious Order, the Bene Gesserit. She begins to prepare Paul for some of the challenges he must face to determine whether he is "the One" foretold in prophesy by the Order.
His life begins to veer off towards that destiny when his family is ordered by the emperor of the Galaxy to take control of the planet Arrakis, which produces the mysterious "spice" that it's used to help spaceships fly and is incidentally a hallucinogen, created by huge sandworms that make the desert treacherous - and the entirety planet is covered by the desert.
The family, when they arrive on the planet, struggle to adapt to their new environment, which seems completely hostile to them, as it was to their previous occupiers, the Harkonnen family, who bear a grudge against the Atreides'.
We immediately take a shine to the boy and his family as they make their way through a maze of imperial intrigue and deceit, and learn of the messianic legacy Paul may have ahead of him. And even before leaving his home planet, he begins having a dreams about a mysterious girl on Arrakis, dreams that intensify once he inhales the Spice.
Every shot of this LONG, two and a half hour film is a visual masterpiece. Music by Hans Zimmer is spectacular, as well, adding a touch of wonder and mysticism to every act.
The film unwinds slowly, but it's all necessary, given the total alien nature of the plot. Because of this, it's not necessary for you to know the story before walking in the theater, but it does help if you've read the book or have seen the 1982 film that precede it, which is a lot shorter, but does not cover a lot of what's on the book.
Or, I should say, the first half of the book, because the director focused only on the first half of the book in this first installment.
This film is more complete than the 1982 film, and it's in fact the first of two, or even three, films the director hopes to film, using the author's source material (Herbert wrote several books about the Dune universe.)
Movie #2 is already green lit by the studio, and comes in October, 2023, with filming starting next year, which seems to be rushing things, given how sweeping and detailed this one is. "Epic" seems too small of a word for this film.
Even if you hate science fiction, you might like this film's story, which is Shakespearean.
But Sci Fi, this definitely is, and the battle scenes are big, with ships, including airships that can lift heavy objects by inflating huge balloons, and the dragonfly-like Ornithopter, delightful to behold. My jaw dropped at the alien technology here. Yours will, too.
Five stars, if that matters.
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