Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) is granted leadership over the desert planet Arrakis; a hard environment with harsher natives, the Fremen, but the only place where the valuable melange spice – a necessary element for intergalactic travel – can be harvested.  He brings with him his wife, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), a sister in the clairvoyant religious order Bene Gesseri, and their son, Paul (Timothée Chalamet).  As they settle into their new lives, Paul begins to have strange dreams revolving around a mysterious Fremen, Chani (Zendaya) and as he begins to decipher more and more of these plaguing visions, he also begins to recognize his own destiny.

Denis Villeneuve is the third director to take a crack at Dune, the infamously unadaptable novel by Frank Herbert.  This 2021 film is Part 1 of a proposed 2-part franchise for the director, released by Warner Brothers.  The big-budget spectacle is much in the vein of Villeneuve’s previous sci-fi stories that also seek to find and explore the humanity of its characters.  It works to varying degrees of success; the same film by any other director would make it impressive, but as an entry into Villeneuve’s canon of work, it feels lacking and hollow.

The nuggets of the human story are all there and presented early on; the story of a son walking in the footsteps of his father.  Of the many stories the script – co-written with Jon Spaihts, Eric Roth, and Villeneuve – balances, this dynamic is one of the strongest and most captivating.  The Atreides family are at the dawn of a new era in their history and the history of the world they inhabit as they enter into their new roles as leaders of the spice planet Arrakis.  The responsibility of the colony is a heavy burden to bear and given the vague understanding that their predecessors led with questionable integrity, the heroes of Dune have been confirmed.

The villains of the film, Beast Rabban Harkonnen (Dave Bautista) working under orders from The Baron (Stellan Skarsgård), make for a formidable duo.  With costuming led by Jacqueline West, their black desert robes give them a frightening look and their demeanor works well as the standard high-fantasy bad guys.  They don’t reinvent the arc, but their dynamic is interesting and works as a good foil to the dynamic of Leto and Paul, but that is about where the synthesis ends.  While each pair has an interesting arc to follow, their intersection does not always meet as smoothly as one would like.  The semi-climactic encounter in the middle of the film has some neat moments peppered throughout but is rather mundane and plodding as far as scope.  It is in the quieter and more intimate moments between good and evil that are most memorable which again points to Villeneuve’s fascination with relationships even in the midst of fantastic settings. 

Dune is all about the dynamics of the characters and the last of the major pairings to examine is Paul and his mother Jessica.  There is a lot to unpack here, and it follows a similar trajectory of what is Paul’s destiny, much like the arc he follows with his father, but whereas Leto guides Paul on his political rise, Jessica guides him on a more spiritual path in becoming the Kwisatz Haderach, a messianic being in the Bene Gesseri faith.  The way the story unfolds, it appears that this will become the main thread of which all the political unrest will revolve around and thankfully both Chalamet and Furguson have strong chemistry in their scenes together.  She plays the role of a doting mother well and is never overbearing, and while Chalamet has all the pent-up angst required of a teenage hero, his brooding is never unbearable.  The film makes it very clear that he is being called for something higher and Chalamet finds the balance of fighting back against these preordained notions to create his own path but has all the bravado of a chosen one simmering just underneath the surface for easy access when the story requires.

There is one more relationship that the film clearly highlights the importance of but is barely explored and that is between Paul and Chani.  She often haunts Paul’s visions and dreams, and her narration opens the film, but there is not much more for her to do here than be mysterious.  Zendaya shines in her very limited amount of screen time and brings the promise of things to come should Part 2 be greenlit by the studio.  It is a bold move to split the film without the guarantee afforded another WB property: David Yates’ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2010, 2011).  If it works, it has the potential to be a great success as it will allow the famously dense work the room it needs to breathe and develop but as it stands right now it can be a frustrating watch as at the end of the 155-minute film, we are really only at the end of Act 1 of a larger story.

As such, Dune has a lot to cover and a lot of exposition to dispense and the actors struggle under the weight.  Their performances are best when they are moving what little plot this film has forward, but the lectures we are subject to about the workings of the world – while entirely necessary to understand what is happening – are delivered without an ounce of subtlety.  When it comes to the visual worldbuilding, the film fares much better but there is still something lacking.  Greig Fraser’s cinematography creates a wonderfully harsh atmosphere for the film and manages to make the endless sands interesting to look at, but the overall production design feels restrained, and that it is being held back.  It struggles to find its place on the sliding scale of primitive because of the environment on one end and high-tech because it is still science-fiction on the other so that nothing really feels at place or at home in the world.

Hans Zimmer provides the rhythmic and rumbling score which, like the costumes, relies heavily on Middle Eastern influence.  From the landscape and the lore created by Herbert, it makes sense, but it brings to light the question of where does the white savior narrative which Dune is gearing up to be fit into modern storytelling – or rather, does it fit in at all anymore?  Without the backing context of the novel which apparently will later begin to deconstruct the trope at question here, the fact still stands that its treatment of Arabic culture seems to be coming from a place of mystic exoticism and fascination which can, at times, be uncomfortable to watch being exploited.

Overall, Dune seems like a more successful film in what it promises to deliver rather than what is actually presented here on screen.  It does its job at setting the stage and it does build interest, but it can not shake the sense that it is unfinished because, well, it is unfinished.  With as many stars listed on the call sheet as there are in the skies, Dune is unique in that it is a very self-serious entry into modern tentpole filmmaking, and the entire cast adopts the dire tone adeptly enough while never allowing the film to become an experiment in dread.  Despite its technical successes, the film leaves us wanting more, which in turn makes the film a success overall, too, as it strengthens its case for Part 2.