I finally saw this last night. The cinematography was amazing, and the team who worked on the ship design and various other props, sets and images that brought this film to life should be commended. The cast were very good, especially Oscar Isaac as Duke Leto and Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica. I felt the movie really captured the look of Herbert’s world, much like Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings captured Middle-earth.

Like Jackson’s trilogy, this movie felt really rushed to me. Frank Herbert was so meticulous in planning all his ‘wheels within wheels’ that the film can’t help but gloss over certain details, and spend less time on things than the book did. The heart of Herbert’s novel lies in the political machinations, the backstabbing and double dealing between the different houses and characters, and we get very little of this in the movie. Nor do we hear much about mentats, or a lot of the other rich detail for which Herbert is so well known. I’m not knocking the movie here–it was a great achievement–but Herbert’s vision was so groundbreaking at the time, and has had such an enormous impact on science fiction, that I think it is almost impossible to do it justice, especially for fans who grew up with this book and have likely read it multiple times. As with Jackson’s movies, I enjoyed this interpretation for what it was, an amazing attempt at retelling a classic, beloved story. But I wanted more screen time for characters like Duncan Idaho and Gurney Halleck; alas, in a two and a half hour movie, there is a lot of ground to cover and it made me feel as if they didn’t quite get their due.

Certain events in the novel, like the threat of violence or the deaths of characters, are easier to read than they are to see. I think the book was more elegant in presenting some of this material, and there is something to be said for leaving it to the reader’s imagination. It is extremely disturbing to watch some of these scenes, (for example, the abduction of Jessica and Paul, and the death of Leto) and felt at times almost like a horror film. The hopelessness of what happens to House Atreides in the book, and the brutality of it, are bad enough to read about, and I felt myself cringing at some of these moments in the movie. Again, I am not really criticizing the film–this material is all in the book, and I guess I prefer the novel.

One thing I didn’t enjoy so much was the soundtrack. No doubt there is plenty of menace in Dune, but the entirety of the score for this sounded to my ears like a one note, jarring, explosive kind of thrumming bass that kept up in scene after scene. Yes, we know the material is dark. I don’t know that we needed that thunderous void of anti-music to remind us again and again. Where was Duncan Idaho’s baliset? Some of that would have been a nice break from the noise.

The ornithopters were awesome, as were all of the ships! The stillsuits, the costumes, the fight choreography, all of it was so well done. Kudos to the artists and teams of effects experts that brought this to life. I rate this movie four out of five stars, and probably five stars if you haven’t read Dune, which you really should. It may be old fashioned, but I prefer the novel as a medium. A novel requires more from an audience than a film, but the novel’s rewards are far greater. Although this movie was true to the book, its shortcomings highlight what an amazing world Frank Herbert created.