DUNE PART ONE (2021) * ½

Despite the fact that it simultaneously premiered in theaters and at home on HBO Max, Dune Part One director Denis (Arrival) Villeneuve was adamant that people see his film in a movie theater, the way he intended.  I wound up watching it the way I usually watch movies:  On my couch late at night while nodding off to sleep.  In fact, I had to eventually watch it over the span of a couple nights because this dreary bore kept putting my ass to sleep.  

David Lynch’s Dune was bad, but this is something else.  At least Lynch’s version was so spectacularly bad that it was an unforgettable mess.  Villeneuve’s Dune is like watching someone throw sand on monochromatic paint and then spending hours watching it dry.  Neither the action nor the drama is compelling.  Lynch’s picture was an assault on the senses.  This one would make for perfect ASMR background noise.

The best moments come early on and are staged almost exactly like the original.  Both highlights revolve around the training of Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet).  Once the action switches its focus to the desert planet Dune, the pace gets stuck in the quicksand (slowsand?).  The big issue is the ending, or lack thereof as it’s just half a movie.  (Villeneuve puts the subtitle “Part One” front and center in the opening credits as a way to let himself off the hook.)  Like Halloween Kills, it doesn’t mean a whole lot as it’s only leading to another movie.  It's all set-up and no payoff.  I don’t know about you, but it’s a little irksome to spend nearly three hours on something that forgets to have a climax.  Like the original, it ends with a knife fight, but it’s poorly staged and it’s hard to care what happens because we already KNOW what’s going to happen.  I mean if Paul DIES, there won’t be a Dune Part Two.  

The performances are a mixed bag.  Chamalet looks like a wax sculpture of Tim Burton that went Pinocchio on us.  Everyone was hard on Hayden Christensen in the Star Wars prequels, but he is positively Shakespearian compared to Chamalet.  The villain is even worse.  Having Stellan Skarsgard play The Baron as Col. Kurtz was… a choice.  He’s pretty awful and isn’t given a whole lot to do.  Heck, even the usually engaging and energetic Oscar Isaac looks bored here.  It’s not all bad though.  I’m curious to see whatever movie Jason Momoa and Josh Brolin thought they were acting in as they seem like the only ones who are half awake.  Rebecca Ferguson isn’t bad as Paul’s mother, although she and Chalamet have no chemistry together.  (Then again, it’s hard to have chemistry with a wax figure.)

The droning soundtrack and bland visuals put me to sleep three nights in a row.  Even during the occasional fight scenes and battle sequences, the music is curiously apathetic and doesn’t do anything to heighten the action on screen.  I can’t imagine paying money to see this in the theater.  I would’ve been asleep by the first hour.    

AKA:  Dune.