- Starring
- Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Stellan Skarsgård
- Director
- Denis Villeneuve
- Rating
- PG-13
- Genre
- Action, Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi
- Release date
- October 22, 2021
- Where to watch
- MAX
Overall Score
Rating Overview
Rating Summary
Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel in 1966, Frank Herbert’s Dune has been a staple in the libraries of sci-fi nerds for nearly 60 years. Can Denis Villeneuve’s attempt do justice to Herbert’s sprawling tale of mysticism and political intrigue?
Dune: Part 1
Set in the year 10191, Dune follows Paul Atreides, the 15-year-old son of Duke Leto Atreides, as he, his family, and all members of their House, on the order of Emperor Shaddam Corino IV, leave their ancestral home to take control of the desert planet Dune. Wrapped in mystery, the planet is the lone source of the Spice Melange, the most valuable substance in the known universe. It is the key ingredient that makes interstellar travel possible and contains many other properties that can profoundly affect humans.
Not the sort to take losing access to the most profitable operation known to man lightly, the Atreides’ mortal enemies and former stewards of Dune, The Harkonnens, lose no time plotting their revenge as well as their return.
2021’s Dune gets a lot right. Its brilliantly conceived aesthetic was lovingly crafted in evident reverence for the source material. Every piece of technology, location, ship, and article of clothing feels utterly authentic and has a tactile quality that seamlessly blends with the events and characters on screen. While it’s not stated anywhere in the movie, those in the know will almost certainly appreciate the thought process behind designing an advanced technological society that has rejected AI and higher-functioning computers.
For the most part, the performers are wonderfully matched to their characters, and everyone gives nearly as good as they get (though some don’t have the capacity to “get” as good as you might like). Timothée Chalamet’s Paul is thoughtful and nuanced, and the (then 25-year-old) Chalamet’s size, bearing, and baby face are perfect for the 15-year-old Paul. Though it remains to be seen if these qualities will be as helpful in Part 2 when he needs be a leader of hardened desert folk.
Even weaker performers like Jason Momoa are at the top of their game for Dune. However, Momoa’s best is still surface-level, and he never quite achieves a sense of empathic realism equal to those around him. Unfortunately, this shallow disparity translates to a relatively emotionally flat payoff to what is supposed to be Momoa’s character’s most significant moment. Sometimes looking the part isn’t enough.
That being said, one standout performance comes from the nearly unrecognizable Stellan Skarsgård as Baron Harkonnen. Aided by some incredible makeup and pitch-perfect costuming, Skarsgård’s Baron, while lacking some of the more disturbing predilections of the original character, is a delightful menace.
Arguably Dune’s greatest weakness is its dialogue. The novel and the 1984 film run aplenty with heavily stylized narrated internal dialogue, giving it depth and a distinctiveness all its own. However, in director Denis Villeneuve’s desire to make his film more cinematic rather than literary, he’s robbed the viewer of much of the intrigue and mysticism as well as the je ne sai quoi that made the novel a fan-beloved treasure and the 1984 film a cult-classic.
Furthermore, where many have criticized the voice-over work of the original as hokey, its omission from this new version created a narrative vacuum that is unfortunately filled with vast chunks of clunky perfunctory exposition in its place. Virtually the entire first act is rife with it, and while the original also had full spice-harvester loads of exposition, at least it was stylized and added something to the film’s milieu.
In what threatens to keep Dune (2021) from achieving cult status, it manages to downplay or entirely omit some of the most interesting and quirky secondary characters and subplots in favor of more mainstream sweeping vistas and long pregnant silences. Gone is Baron Harkonnen’s sociopathic nephew, Feyd Rautha, and Harkonnen Mentat Piter De Vries is inexcusably shunted to the equivalent of cinematic wallpaper.
Moreover, the film repeatedly and hamfistedly tells the audience that Spice is extremely valuable but does a poor job of explaining why—giving us little reason to care about the substance, which is a character unto itself in both the novel and original Dune film.
Ultimately, this version of Dune gets the scope and visual style (except for the criminal omission of red stains on the lips of the Mentats) of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi epic right but sacrifices much of the underlying vibe of the originals in its pursuit of cinematic awesomeness (which it achieves in spades). Nevertheless, it’s a testament to the film’s overall quality that you’re left wanting more at the end of over two and a half hours, and one hopes that many of the above criticisms will be answered in the upcoming sequel.
WOKE ELEMENTS
- While this version has quite a bit more diversity than its 1984 counterpart, there’s not much specification on such things in the book. That being said, it makes very little sense for a populous of only 1 million (the Fremen), who have lived apart from other groups of humans for generations, not to look a little more homogenous.
- In a movie based on a book that already boasts multiple strong women in leadership roles, changing Liet-Kynes to a woman can only have been done for the sake of woke ideology.
- Lady Jessica’s role has been modernized (i.e., made far less interesting in an effort to pander to “contemporary movie-goers” [i.e., obnoxious wokies who have no idea what femininity is]). In the book as well as in the original film, Jessica is one of the most beautiful women in the galaxy, and while Rebecca Ferguson certainly qualifies as such, this new version strips the character of her femininity as well as the decorative trappings of her station and Order. Instead of a brilliant, manipulative, and ruthless woman hiding in plain sight, her aesthetic is more that of a Franciscan Monk, and her station is closer to that of the Duke. This only manages to dilute the impact of what is in store for the character in Part 2.
- In another move solely designed to mollify virtue-signaling activists, Baron Harkonnen’s pedophilic homosexuality has been completely erased. This is a shame because it makes the character truly repugnant and serves the narrative incredibly well. One wonders why Hollywood would be opposed to making a pedophile a villain.
James Carrick
James Carrick is a passionate film enthusiast with a degree in theater and philosophy. James approaches dramatic criticism from a philosophic foundation grounded in aesthetics and ethics, offering insight and analysis that reveals layers of cinematic narrative with a touch of irreverence and a dash of snark.
19 comments
Matt
August 13, 2023 at 10:38 pm
This is ridiculous, a strong female lead an an efeminate man is definitely woke
James Carrick
August 13, 2023 at 10:43 pm
I don’t think that he was effeminate, just young looking (which makes sense since the character is only 15); and Jessica has been a strong woman in every iteration, including the original 1965 novel. However, I dinged the movie for how they changed her. That being said, I don’t feel that her modification justifies marking the entire film as woke.
Willie Fidler
August 16, 2023 at 7:09 pm
If the wokes got there hands on this then Paul Dune would of had pronouns
Tia
August 16, 2023 at 9:05 pm
Never saw/read the originals, but honestly this makes me interested in viewing this new iteration. Thanks for the review!
Peter File
August 18, 2023 at 12:37 pm
How can you say it’s not woke when there’s a forced bl*ck f*male right there on the poster, I don’t want this forced woke represention in my scifi movies…
James Carrick
August 18, 2023 at 7:04 pm
We can say that the whole of the movie isn’t woke based on the inclusion of a race and gender-swapped character because…
1. It’s one rather minor character.
2. Her DEI hire, while eye-rollingly annoying, is not a sweeping ideological wokeness that permeates the entire film.
3. Because we have a point system for chipping away at our Non-Wokeness score, and one minor and annoying instance of wokeness does not a woke movie make.
Finally, one of the reasons that we leave the comments open and have provided both the ability to rate individual comments as well as leave your own rating and review for the various movies that we spotlight, is that unlike the Left, we don’t believe that everyone who is on our side of the isle is a mindless zombie. We understand that there are those of us with different tolerance levels for and perspectives on wokeness. This is also why we itemize instances of wokeness at the bottom of each review, so that each individual can decide for themselves.
Ktuff_morning
February 16, 2024 at 9:07 am
I’m a straight white male who is as annoyed by woke as you are who happens to be leftist.
James Carrick
February 16, 2024 at 9:41 am
Glad to have you on board. There was a time, not long ago, when those on the right and left could come together in friendship and fellowship and shared principles. It’s good to know that there are still those on the Left with whom you can share a beer.
Just Some Nut
August 19, 2023 at 2:00 am
That is totally fair. I originally preferred to know every little thing that could be taken as woke to be addressed in the review on this site, but now it makes sense to not bring it up if the point doesn’t permeate the film or even a scene, especially to a reader who is not tuned into every little development for a film.
This is in reference to my comment addressing the gender-swap of Cosmo the Russian space dog in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. I’ve since talked with my friends concerning the topic, and many of them were not aware of this alteration, including slightly more experienced fans.
So thank you for your continued efforts to improve the site in areas such as this.
James Carrick
August 19, 2023 at 2:26 am
I do try to pick them all out and list them, and did so for Dune. However, since I missed the dog and you had already pointed it out in the comments, I didn’t edit it in the review. I probably should have though.
Just Some Nut
August 19, 2023 at 9:57 am
No worries! I’m not sure if Cosmo would earn woke points or not for the film because their reason is historical, not woke, but I do appreciate your round-the-clock hard work into this entire site. I’ve read Christian reviews for years and got so frustrated with how personally biased they seem to always end up being, I stopped reading them altogether (PluggedIn, Christian Spotlight, Jesusfreakhideout, etc.). So thank you for sharing your personal opinions while backing up your content points that affect the overall score of the film with reason. Your takes on movies and your deduction system are refreshing, useful and has made me enjoy reading full reviews again, not just the consensuses. I have some experience in web content like this, so if you wish for additional support, I’d be glad to help out. Thanks again for all that you do.
Spencer Suggs
August 27, 2023 at 5:30 pm
In an age of nonstop wokism, this movie is only relatively woke given the subtle nature of the characters. That said, it’s going to be a multipart series and you already know that means that they’ll introduce some woke in the next movie and go full woke in the 3rd. Like the The Fremen, the Hollywood Elitist have their classic “weirding way” too.
Richard
August 27, 2023 at 7:05 pm
I agree about the pointlessness of the Liet-Kynes (they also changed how the character died in the book) character being made female, especially as there are a lot of powerful women in the novel. Heck, the Bene Gesserit are among the most powerful figures in the whole saga. I was wondering if there might have been more downplaying of Paul Atreides being the kwizatz hadderach, since he effectively becomes more powerful than any woman, and modern Hollywood is certainly not going to like that.
Another woke-ism I noticed was near the start, where Chani talks about wondering who the next oppressors would be, especially strange since the Fremen pretty much keep themselves to themselves.
I believe that the origin of the Fremen is a group of ‘buddislamics’ who crash landed on Arrakis, and they (as Freemen) eventually became the Fremen. The original novel is very much an exploration of religion.
The People
May 13, 2024 at 12:43 am
YO Jimmy Bag O Donuts !
Why have you scrubbed legit reviews from people I’ve previously seen here ?
They were critical but insightful reviews.
Worth it or Woke ? … Is not Worth It.
Ya screwed the pooch Jimmaaaa.
James Carrick
May 13, 2024 at 1:05 am
Lay off the meth. The only thing I think probably needs scrubbed is your moss covered taint.