Dune 2021 Movie Review : A New Cinematic Epic

I remember this one class I had in film school where we saw the documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune, about Alejandro Jodorowsky’s failed attempt to adapt Frank Herbert’s novel and how it also inspired other sci-fi movies like the Alien series, The Terminator, The Fifth Element, and even Star Wars. They all had some element from that production and from Herbert’s world. That was my first contact with the world of Dune and ever since then I’ve been curious about what a proper adaptation could look like on the big screen…and now we know and I might have my favorite movie of the year.

The story of Dune (2021) takes place in the distant future and centers on Paul Atreides, the heir to the noble House Atreides. His family is embroiled in a dangerous galactic conflict after being put in charge of the most valuable element in the galaxy, spice, found in abundance on the desert planet of Arrakis also known as Dune…hence the title.

The journey to properly adapt Herbert’s work has been very long and complicated. Previous attempts have been unsuccessful for various reasons, to the point that many have considered it to be unfilmable. So in order to get this right, you obviously need the right people for the job and that’s where director Denis Villeneuve and everyone else that worked alongside him comes in. 

I see Villeneuve almost as a “chosen one” that was destined to make this movie adaptation a reality because he gets and loves the world of Dune. He has stated in several interviews that he didn’t feel ready to make this movie until he finished his work on Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, which is understandable and you can see how he has learned from his experience in those projects. This is a very particular and interesting filmmaker because as the scale of his projects and recognition have increased, he continues to be consistent in offering the audience a product that has excellent performances, beautiful photography, incredible musical score, smart action scenes, and an entertaining cinematic experience.

In order to get those excellent performances you obviously need excellent actors. Villeneuve has gathered one of the most talented and impressive ensembles of actors I have ever seen in quite a while. I don’t think there is a single character who is unnecessary or who delivers a poor performance. They all have a purpose and a scene or two to stand out, which also includes the minor characters who only have a few scenes or mere minutes of screen time. 

As I said before this is a film with an A-list cast and as such everybody brought their A-game for this movie, but I wanna focus on the most relevant characters…which is basically most of the ones that are featured in the poster, with the exception of Zendaya since she’s surprisingly not that much in the film, and I understand the reason behind this, so I don’t think it would be fair to critic her performance. 

Starting off with Timothée Chalamet as the lead of this epic in space. Chalamet has already proven himself as one of the greatest actors of his generation, and his performance in Dune is no exception, my favorite of his career. Chalamet nails the serious and dramatic moments, he has a few cool action scenes, and he’s likable as the young noble, but for me, the best parts were seeing him being tortured by the future that has been laid out for him either by his birthright and duty to his family or some almighty force that we can call destiny. 

After watching it a second time I realized that this was actually the most important character that the film had to get right in order for it to work. Not only is he the lead, and hence he needs to be relatable and/or likable so the audience can sheer him along his journey, he also functions as a surrogate for the audience so they can learn and better understand the complicated logic of the world of Dune. 

I am a huge fan of both Rebecca Ferguson and Oscar Isaac, Honestly, it doesn’t surprise me that they were chosen to be part of Dune since both have experience with the sci-fi genre and they are both very good at executing or transmitting the qualities that their respective characters needed to show in key scenes of the story. 

If you need someone that is smart, knows how to lead others, and demands a certain authority when entering the room then Isaac is the right guy for the job. I really don’t want to play favorites here, but my favorite scene throughout the entire movie has Isaac in it because is both very meaningful and simple.

I’m pretty sure that at this point of her career Ferguson has proven that she can do pretty much anything, but I honestly think that this was the first time that I saw her flesh out more of her dramatic talents. I like seeing her character as one that is torn between the love she has for both her son and her duty to the organization she belongs to, so when those two worlds collide with one another she is always caught in the middle. 

Sticking with the good guys you then have Jason Momoa and Josh Brolin as the elite warriors famously known across space…which basically makes them the coolest characters in the entire movie. 

Brolin’s character is very simple, he is a serious and aggressive military man who’s extremely loyal to his superiors, and that makes him the perfect guy for this type of role. I find it very interesting that even though he doesn’t have many scenes, he ended up becoming one of my favorite characters and my favorite scene of him is ironically his last scene…that’s the effect that Brolin can have on you apparently.

With Momoa, you get exactly what you expect, a tall intimidating man that is an expert fighter and can take on multiple enemies at the same time, but Momoa is also known for being a goofball who you can hang out with and have fun in real life, that’s a quality that is very much needed in a film like Dune because it delivers a few jokes that can make the experience of watching this movie, with a runtime of two and a half hours, more fun.

Finally, there are the bad guys made up by Stellan Skarsgard, Dave Bautista, and David Dastmalchian. Bautista and Dastmalchian have very minor roles here so hopefully, they’ll get to do more in the sequel. But it’s Skarsgard who takes over every scene he’s in as the Baron Harkonnen. This is a man who is cruel, greedy, cold-blooded, and sadistic, so all of those elements that can rot the soul of a person have manifested in the physique of this character, but he’s also very intelligent because he knows how to negotiate with the right people and say the right thing in order to get what he wants. Once when you add someone with Skarsgard’s versatility and talent, you end up with a villain who’s grotesque and intimidating.

The work in front of the camera is equally as important as the work behind it, so going back to what I mentioned about having the right team for the job, Villeneuve works again with some of his collaborators from previous films, collaborators that I would say are the key elements to bringing Herbert’s work to life. They are editor Joe Walker, production designer Patrice Vermette, visual effects supervisor Paul Lambert, makeup artist Donald Mowat, sound designer Theo Green, sound editor Mark Mangini, special effects supervisor Gerd Nefzer. Working for the first time with Villeneuve is Greg Fraser as cinematographer, Jon Spaihts and Eric Roth as screenwriters, and the great Hans Zimmer in charge of the musical score. 

If by the end of the movie you end up loving the beautiful cinematography, the look of the cool spaceships or sandworms, the art in the costumes and sets, the incredible musical score, and even have that desire to buy the novels and learn more about the world of Dune, then I believe it’s important that you know who are the people responsible for that.

These people and everybody else who was part of the crew outdid themselves in their job. I’ve always considered the tasks of worldbuilding to be one of the most difficult when creating fiction (especially sci-fi and/or fantasy) because it has to be coherent for the audience and it has been achieved here. The last time that I felt captivated by a fictional universe that also made me wish that I could be transported into that otherworldly reality was with James Cameron’s Avatar in 2009. They absolutely deserve to be recognized and hopefully, the different film and entertainment associations see it the same way when award season arrives. 

Possibly the only criticism I would have to say about the film is that because the story in the novel is so large in content and scale, Villeneuve knew he had to split the film into two parts and this ends up resulting in some positive things and some negative things. 

Dividing the story into two allows for better character development in order to understand everything they go through on their journey, especially since this is a story that involves a lot of character-defining decisions and sacrifices; the split also allows Villeneuve and the writers to focus more on building and developing the world of Dune and familiarizing the audience with the rules and lore of that world. 

The most negative effect of the decision is that the film may leave some audience members feeling unsatisfied, and it is true because this story is not complete. Whether it’s because they were waiting for a proper resolution or they wanted to see more from other actors like Zendaya, Dave Bautista, or Javier Bardem, there is something missing from this film. But at the end of the day, this was the right decision and the only way to properly adapt Herbert’s story to the big screen.

There’s also the fact that we live in a world where whether a movie gets greenlighted or not depends more on its numbers at the box office, so there was actually a time I feared that the sequel might not happen and all the effort and passion put by Villeneuve and his team might end up going to waste. Fortunately enough the numbers at the box office are more than good, both critics and audiences are loving Dune: Part One and the sequel is definitely happening, so mark your calendar for October 20 of 2023 because we’re getting Dune: Part Two baby!

As the journey to make this epic adaptation possible has taken a very long time, so has this review. I could spend hours talking about Dune and every single artistic and technical detail that pushed me to the edge of my seat as I was being blown away by everything that was being projected into the big silver screen. I asked myself “is it possible that this is what people felt when they saw Star Wars for the first time?”, you tell me what do you think about that, but for that is a question that no other movie has ever gotten out of me before and in a way, it’s also the question that can serve as the reason to justify this new cinematic epic place among my favorites of the year if not THE best of the year for me. 

Score: I’ve seen the film twice with my best friends, I’ll probably see it a third time again very soon, and I expect to see it many more times in the future.