I normally enjoy Denis Villeneuve's films, and I won't ever, ever deny that Lynch's Dune was really clunky and weird.
But I had fun with 1984's cheesy version, and didn't enjoy 2021 at all. Normally Villeneuve's minimalist can be a good aesthetic choice, and his color-oversaturated scenes matched the moody cyberpunk atmosphere of Blade Runner 2049 like a glove, but here? It's cranked up to eleven, making it feel as if Dune went through the "DC Filter", since the scenes with more than three colors in the palette are rare, everyone gained a level in 'moody somber jerk', and every scene was three times longer than necessary. Too many overly long pans, too many long 'precognitive flashes'.
And sadly, this comes with a heavy cost of everything else. There is no time to properly explain the nuances of a scenario where every single detail is crucial and interesting. There is no explanation about the roles of the mentat, or how heavy its the hand of the Bene Gesserit or how Suk doctors are supposed to be fiercely loyal or even how absolutely vital Melange is to make the whole empire work, everything is given in passing. All characters were turned one-dimensional pastiches of their book counterparts, worsened by the fact that Villeneuve denies us the chance to hear what the characters are thinking. For example, Gurney Hallec isn't the troubadour that cheers everyone's up and has witty banter with Paul during training, he is just an angry soldier that recites passages of the Orange Bible (which also isn't explained), which makes his future shift into a fanatical follower of Paul less impactful, and Liet-Kynes never acknowledges his (in this movie her) admiration for the Duke's selfless actions. Jason Mamoa acts like Aquaman, instead of the loved second father of Paul (honestly I thought it would fit much better to just swap Mamoa and Brolin's roles). If JJ Abram's len's flare was the antitesis to the sleek optimistic future of Star Trek, Villeneuve's minimalism absolutely destroys Dune.
Minimalism doesn't fit a narrative full of nuances and details. The sci-fi elements are uninspired and bland, the ships are just basic geometric shapes, giant tubes, a rhombus or ovoids, all grey. The only difference between a room in Caladan or a room in Arrakis is the color tone, because both just look like dug in raw rock. No different aesthetics or architecture, devoid of pictures or banners, without a single reference to the Atreide's eagle. There is no finesse, most characters just wear dull black clothes and both armor and the stillsuits look uninspired, if not downright generic (whereas Lynch's version depicted something closer in the book with the stillsuits mimicking musculature), and the strategic fights turned into awkward 'cinematic' sequences with bad camera angles, spins and twirls. There are some interesting bits here and there, like the scene where Paul is leaving Caladan or the planet of the Sadaukar, but other than that, it feels like a brainless blockbuster movie pretending to be deep because of the source material.
Artistically bloated, creatively stunted.
I normally enjoy Denis Villeneuve's films, and I won't ever, ever deny that Lynch's Dune was really clunky and weird.
But I had fun with 1984's cheesy version, and didn't enjoy 2021 at all. Normally Villeneuve's minimalist can be a good aesthetic choice, and his color-oversaturated scenes matched the moody cyberpunk atmosphere of Blade Runner 2049 like a glove, but here? It's cranked up to eleven, making it feel as if Dune went through the "DC Filter", since the scenes with more than three colors in the palette are rare, everyone gained a level in 'moody somber jerk', and every scene was three times longer than necessary. Too many overly long pans, too many long 'precognitive flashes'.
And sadly, this comes with a heavy cost of everything else. There is no time to properly explain the nuances of a scenario where every single detail is crucial and interesting. There is no explanation about the roles of the mentat, or how heavy its the hand of the Bene Gesserit or how Suk doctors are supposed to be fiercely loyal or even how absolutely vital Melange is to make the whole empire work, everything is given in passing. All characters were turned one-dimensional pastiches of their book counterparts, worsened by the fact that Villeneuve denies us the chance to hear what the characters are thinking. For example, Gurney Hallec isn't the troubadour that cheers everyone's up and has witty banter with Paul during training, he is just an angry soldier that recites passages of the Orange Bible (which also isn't explained), which makes his future shift into a fanatical follower of Paul less impactful, and Liet-Kynes never acknowledges his (in this movie her) admiration for the Duke's selfless actions. Jason Mamoa acts like Aquaman, instead of the loved second father of Paul (honestly I thought it would fit much better to just swap Mamoa and Brolin's roles). If JJ Abram's len's flare was the antitesis to the sleek optimistic future of Star Trek, Villeneuve's minimalism absolutely destroys Dune.
Minimalism doesn't fit a narrative full of nuances and details. The sci-fi elements are uninspired and bland, the ships are just basic geometric shapes, giant tubes, a rhombus or ovoids, all grey. The only difference between a room in Caladan or a room in Arrakis is the color tone, because both just look like dug in raw rock. No different aesthetics or architecture, devoid of pictures or banners, without a single reference to the Atreide's eagle. There is no finesse, most characters just wear dull black clothes and both armor and the stillsuits look uninspired, if not downright generic (whereas Lynch's version depicted something closer in the book with the stillsuits mimicking musculature), and the strategic fights turned into awkward 'cinematic' sequences with bad camera angles, spins and twirls. There are some interesting bits here and there, like the scene where Paul is leaving Caladan or the planet of the Sadaukar, but other than that, it feels like a brainless blockbuster movie pretending to be deep because of the source material.