DUNE PART 1- THE NEXT LORD OF THE RINGS?

Review By SACHIN SISODIA

Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet’s exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence, only those who can conquer their own fear will survive.

Dune is an 2021 american science fiction film directed by Denis Villeneuve with a screenplay by Jon Spaihts. However it is only a part one as Mr. Villeneuve wished to adapt the book into two parts to fully realize the epic and grand scope of the whole story.

Which seems to have worked very well in this case as this film has a lot of subplots, world building, characters, overarching themes and stories, character arcs running all alongside one another, all of them masterfully executed and told by Denis and his team resulting in a film that looks epic, is beautifully edited, wonderfully paced, accompanied with Hans Zimmer’s bombastic and sometimes melodious score, amazing cinematography, beautiful sci-fi tech on which clearly the millions have been spent by Warner Bros.

Coming to the other aspects, Dune mostly if not completely delivers a decent sci-fi epic.Packed with an impressive cast led by Timothée Chalamet and Rebecca Ferguson who play Paul Atreides and Lady Jessica respectively.Josh Brolin, Oscar Isaac, Stellen Skarsgaard, Dave Bautista, Jason Momoa are also there and play their parts well enough.Zendaya and Javier Bardem eventually join in towards the end.

Rebecca Ferguson as the mother of Paul is the standout character and performer followed by Timothee’s Paul. Their mother-son relationship and bond is believable and relatable and perhaps the most emotional string of the film.There are quite a few characters that are dispatched in this film, but for whatever reason they were never fully realized to begin with, maybe there wasn’t enough run time.

So you are left a little distant when their eventual fates are realized.You feel for Paul as he witnesses or learns about their tragedies, but not specifically for them.Since also this is a part one the film abruptly ends just as when it seemed a new chapter was beginning.”This is only the beginning” Zendaya’s character Chani says.

There are plenty of visions and dreams and forewarnings of things to come that we see through Paul’s visions all of them hinting at bigger, complex, important revelations and battles which I guess we’ll have to wait for. The film takes its time at world building and hence you are never confused and very much enthralled at the visual spectacle on the big screen.

Paul is an interesting character if not the greatest, he has the personality of a calm, slightly timid, overprotected kid of the royal family, who when thrown in the worst of circumstances has to learn to adapt and survive and perhaps live upto his parents expectations and his own. Filled with doubt and uncertainty but gifted with power, his heart is stricken with turmoil as he needs to decide on whether he should become the leader like his parents wish him to be or he should be something else.”A great man never seeks to lead, he is called to it” says Oscar Isaac who plays his father Leto Atriedes.

Overall, Denis delivers a competent sci-fi epic which dazzles with it’s filmmaking and more or less captures your intrigue with its new and promising world and diverse characters even if a little more work could be done for some of the characters.

Is this the new Lord Of The Rings ? Will there even be a part 2 ? Will this film even score a profit at the box office with the current situations ? Dune part 1 may not be a great film however it is a good film even if it leaves you on a bit of an unfulfilling note which can only be done justice with a sequel film for which this one needs to be a massive success.

Dune fans should be happy with this competent and faithful adaptation for the time being.