Chris Clay

Visually stunning but unfulfilling story. Contrary to the hype, I was underwhelmed and checked my watch twice during part 2 to work out how missing content was going to be crammed into the last 30 minutes. Personally, character arks that were changed or unexplored left holes in the story. More of the story should have been included in part 1, with the break being the introduction of the na baron. So we see Paul is getting stronger, but is going to face a formidable challenge in part 2. Part 2 was immense and captivating Fremen lore, but everything else was just crammed in. Ok, I get it. I got it in the first film. As did my wife who’s never read the book. These guys are desert power. They ride worms. They are a warrior tribe. They are looking for their messiah. I wanted to love this movie, and maybe I was expecting too much. The book is quite a beast to get through, so I highly recommend the kindle audio book. It has voice actors and the production quality is superb.

Going into the film, my wife was looking forward to a $15 snooze for a couple of hours on a cinema recliner whilst I 'got my nerd on'. With no prior knowledge of the book or other attempts, and only guided by me saying it's original sci fi that inspired Star Wars - off we trotted. Bear in mind, my wife thinks Jar Jar Binks is great and the all female Ghostbusters film was good, I figured that sleeping would be a great option for her. I just hoped my bladder would be leniant. How wrong could I be (wife's enjoyment, not my bladder). My wife thoroughly enjoyed the film and required nothing to be explained afterwards. They've nailed it. To be clear, I'm a huge fan of the Dune universe, finally finding the energy to lift my dads hardback from the shelf about 20 years ago. I've never seen a film where a scene brings a tear to your eye through the visualisation, not a character, not a scene. Denis and co did a spectacular job of transforming narrative into eye candy. Characters - tick Visuals - tick Music - tick Universe/technology - tick Book adaptation - huge tick Bring on 2023. Like any ambitious film, there will be people that watch it and find it boring. Those same people probably spend all day on TikTak and have the attention span of a goldfish. No, the film won't be for them and I suggest the Paw Patrol movie would be more satisfying.