I haven’t watched the 1984 version by David Lynch or read the book, but I have listened to a couple of hours of it through Audible in preparation for the movie, but didn’t get pasted a couple of hours, because of all the long and strange words that are just thrown at you and you’re expected to understand. I’ve heard the book at least has a glossary in the back to look up all those words but Audible doesn’t have that feature yet. So, I knew very little about the story going into it, but the fact it was being made by my favourite filmmaker working and an incredible cast, made it my number two most anticipated film of the year (only behind Spider-Man: No Way Home).

Paul (Timothee Chalamet) has been having bizarre dreams that he doesn’t understand, when his family is moved to look after the desert planet, Arrakis and save it from the Baron’s army who want to take over and harvest all the spice from the planet.

Denis doesn’t miss. Denis Villeneuve is my favourite filmmaker working, his previous film, Blade Runner 2049 is one of my favourite films of all time. A gorgeous sci fi film that got me even more hyped for his next gorgeous sci fi film, and he doesn’t disappoint. The visuals are incredible. The cinematography by Greig Fraser, who previously worked on Rogue One, the best looking Star Wars film so far, and who is doing next year’s The Batman before Dune: Part Two, knocks it out the park. There are particular times where it feels like they’ve exactly copied Rogue One, with some shots of ships in space, with the level of depth and lighting, making it feel as real as it could. Denis previously working with the cinematography master Roger Deakins certainly helped when they were planning out this film. Deakins was supposed to be director of photography for this film before going on to work on 1917 instead, which he obviously won his second Oscar for.

The design of everything in this world is perfect. From the visual effects to the costumes to the sets, all perfectly designed and really help build out this unique world, that I can’t wait to see more of in the sequel. The visual effects need more of a shout out because they consistently look incredible, some of the best VFX I’ve ever seen, there wasn’t a single thing that didn’t look as good as it can be.

The cast is as strong as you’d expect, after all there are a lot of people chomping to work with Villeneuve. Timothee Chalamet is the best young male actor right now, and some strong acting shoulders to place a couple of movies upon. The rest of the supporting cast is strong, Oscar Isaac, Rebecca Ferguson, Jason Momoa, Josh Brolin and Stellen Skarsgard all do good jobs to help flesh out this universe. But the likes of Zendaya, Javier Bardem, Dave Bautista I would’ve liked to see a lot more of but I have no doubt will play a bigger part in the second installment.

My only problem with the film is how dense it is. There’s a lot to explain in the universe, lots of exposition and explaining what things are and somethings which aren’t (yes somethings are confusing), which slows the film down at times. The slowest part of the film is the final act, where you know where they are moving towards setting up the sequel and leaving it in an appropriate place to do the next one, rather than chomping it down to what could be a solid 4 hour film.

Overall, Dune is one of the best films of the year for me, it certainly won’t be for everyone due to the long runtime and if you aren’t a fan of Sci Fi, this isn’t going to convert you. It’s heavy but if you can get into it, it’s more than worth it to see some of Hollywood’s best doing what Hollywood does best. A must watch on the biggest screen possible!

What did you think of Dune?

Suddenly there are so many films out at once. I have seen Venom: Let there be Carnage and The Last Duel so look for reviews for those and will try to see Halloween Kills, Dear Evan Hansen and The French Dispatch as soon as I can, but I might end up missing out on a couple of them, so to keep up to date with my latest reviews follow on Instagram @floodersfilms and on Facebook.