Sci-fi epic gets an adaptation that’s hypnotically beautiful
On screen, Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel “Dune” best suits a director operating in a pre-“Star Wars” mode of storytelling.
The patient, densely embroidered narrative invests heavily in themes of environmental, ecological and colonialist exploitation. Even in a post“Star Wars” smash such as “Avatar,” still the biggest hit in the universe, the point is how many enemies a noble warrior can kill under pressure, in a hurry, so that we feel good and (per “Star Wars”) wouldn’t mind putting quarters in the same game again right away.
“Dune” defies all that. So does its latest screen adaptation, a lot of which I love.
The director/co-writer Denis
Villeneuve takes on less than half of Herbert’s first “Dune” novel. He and his vast army of design and effects collaborators have created a feat of visual and aural hypnosis. When the sandworms on the desert planet Arrakis rise to the surface, the toothsome sight isn’t for fright or gotchas but, rather, wonderment. When teen messiah Paul Atreides and cohorts board an ornithropter, the eight-blade dragonflyesque aircraft soars in more ways than one; it’s a triumph, one among hundreds, of digital magic, convincingly rough-hewn design.
If you’re at all interested in what a reliably compelling, stubbornly solemn commercial filmmaker can do with money, imagination and no little nerve, “Dune” is epic enough — even if there’s a wee hole in the middle, where a more compelling protagonist belongs.
Timothee Chalamet is the wee hole. This is somewhat surprising, since the young actor has done so well in both period and contemporary material in recent years. Partly it’s director Villeneuve’s pictorial framing of Chalamet in repose, in various moods: preoccupied Bronte hero, cliffside; psychic communicator in smoldering yet boyish close-up; and so on.
The year is 10191. Atreides (Chalamet) has been bred to become a savior, though he doesn’t realize it yet, known as the kwisatz haderach. On home planet Caladan, his folks Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) and Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) get their marching orders from Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV to take over the spice-mining operations on
Arrakis, aka Dune, and indeed the entire planet with all its conquered citizens, known as Fremen.
Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgard), former ruler of Arrakin: not happy. Always greedy. Terrible steward of Arrakin’s precious resource, which is the key to interplanetary travel and superpowers.
Paul is a young knight, cast in the mold of King Arthur and his gang in days of old. The new “Dune” movie plays out like his quest (mostly on Arrakis) to become the much-prophesied “Muad’Dib,” who will lead the Fremen to freedom.
This “Dune” is the polar opposite of David Lynch’s 1984 inchoate craziness. The ideal screen “Dune” would consist of one part Lynch and two parts Villeneuve. Is there enough spice on Arrakin to make that
happen?
(for sequences of strong violence, some disturbing images and suggestive material)
2:35
In theaters and streaming on HBO Max.