DUNE(PART ONE)

There is this question I’ve been asking myself lately as a movie critic. This question has been popping up as a result of the quality of movies that have been released lately by Hollywood. Considering tons of movie remakes and what I will like to call unnecessary sequels. Most of these movies fall into average and below-average types of experience. So I ask myself, has Hollywood finally run out of good materials to make into movies? What makes a good movie these days regardless of genre?

Well, I think Dune answers some of these questions to an extent.

Dune is an adaption of Frank Hebert's 1965 novel of the same name. The plot is set in a very distant future, 10191, I kid you not, that's the future date the story is set in. Duke Leto of House Atreides, ruler of an ocean planet, is assigned by their Emperor, Shadaam IV, to serve as the ruler of Arrakis, a desert planet that was previously conquered and ruled by House Harkonnen. House Harkonnen was ordered to withdraw based on the Emperor's orders. Arrakis is also the only source of melange or 'spice', a priceless substance that extends human vitality and is critical for interstellar travel, hence, a precious resource for the empire. While all these serve as important events to the epic, the story is about Paul, Duke Leto's, birthed by his concubine, Lady Jessica and a member of Bene Gesserit Motherhood. Paul is prophesied to be a messiah, but he is unaware of this, as it has been hidden away from him by his mother. But not for long as the events of this first movie bring this secret into his realization and set him on the path to his destiny.

Dune also stars a number of familiar casts, Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Josh Brolin, Dave Bautista, Jason Momo and more.

For the most part, Dune makes use of a familiar formula that we're all used to by now and it's about a messiah or a chosen as you might like to put it. This chosen one is said to bring about the fall of a particular reign of an empire and bring about a new age. While this might be an oversimplification of what Dune is about, at its core that's what the story is about. The two hours and thirty minutes I spent watching Dune was a solid sci-fi experience, especially for people like myself that haven't read the books. while there might be some disparities between this adaption and the book. I feel the effort put into making this movie is a strong one and you just have to experience it. In fact, Dune was tagged back then to be unfilmable, but here we are in 2021 it has been delivered to us by Denis Villeneuve.

Dune dubbed Part One in the opening scene does a good job setting up the introductory aspect of the story. It introduces the audience to politics, science, technology, biomes, characters and more. Speaking of politics, so far we're introduced to House of Atreides, House Harkonnen, Fremen, Bene Gesserit Motherhood, Sardaukar, and the Padishah Emperor. All of these are what makes for the solid storytelling this movie has. Although It could be argued that if this movie was a TV series, the Houses will be fully explored compared to a movie franchise. But with what they've done so far, you can get a good idea of what the Houses are, how important they are going to be in Paul's journey, and how they influence the politics of the empire. All these are not new, in fact, it reminds me of the houses in Game Of Thrones but in a unique way to its own lore.

The storytelling is also linear and it makes it very easy for the audience to follow. When non-linear storytelling is used in high concept movies like this, it tends to be a little tasking for the audience to follow.

Visually, I'll say this movie is breathtaking and it's one of the visually distinctive new movies you'll see this year. Although, the majority of the movie takes place in a desert setting which can sound boring at first when you factor in their science and technology. You'll start to appreciate the movie better. One thing I found interesting in particular is the sense of scale the machines and architecture. Also, halfway through I asked myself why are there no guns in this movie with all the technological advancement, why use dagger and blades? With a little bit of googling I got an answer. Well, if you're also curious to know, it's technically because the shield they have on The shield repels kinetic energy, at least it sort of does. Which makes it more sensible to go physical to with blade and daggers; that answers my question.

Overall, if I was to give this movie a numeral rating, it's going to be somewhere between 8.5-9.0 over 10. Yeah, it's that good and it's a worthy start to a franchise.