Dune: Part One is a long movie covering only part of an even longer book, with a ton of history behind it, and I am writing this without having read the book. In 2025. And, frankly, there’s so much baggage here that I am not equipped to talk about. You can tell it’s not a story written in the modern day. Both in how much it uses now less popular tropes and how many problematic things it contains.
On the broad scheme side, it’s got stuff like a white savior narrative and a lot of racial coding. The binary gender paired with magic thing from The Wheel of Time is also here somehow. And on the more minute side of things, there’s stuff like a fatphobic portrayal of a villain. There’s even a moment where—as far as I can tell—the only character with a disability in the whole of Dune: Part One tries to sexually assault one of the few prominent female characters in the movie. It’s just everywhere, and there’s no avoiding it.
And, like, I assume all of that is in the original book. I assume that there’s a level of accuracy that is expected when adapting something as iconic as Dune. But it feels like there had to be a way to handle that. Some way to mitigate it.
But we have what we have, I guess—and I feel I needed to say all of that upfront. I’m going to shift more to neutral and praising commentary, and you can just assume most of it ends with that asterisk. The actual story of Dune is a very standard hero’s journey. The plot doesn’t really surprise much at any point. So, most of what I’m going to talk about from here on out is specific moments and qualities that are happening alongside everything previously discussed.
Basically, Dune: Part One is visually incredible. The CGI has these occasional moments where it devolves into bad video game cutscene territory, but most of it is astonishingly well done. I cannot think of a movie that gets across scale like this one does. The sheer size of some of the spaceships and buildings—without ever losing a strong reference point—left me awed. The explosions and ship attacks were exquisite. And the moment the worm mouth first appeared, I was struck by the detail. Dune: Part One is a movie that demands attention and demands appreciation for how well-realized its visual world is.
It also deserves respect for how well done the exposition is. God, is there a lot to explain about the worlds of Dune, and it’s thrown at the viewer constantly for the first while, and yet I was riveted. I wanted to know the political machinations. I wanted to know how the laws and rules and groups worked. Even down to the mechanics of a dart gun was interesting. I would’ve happily spent way more time with Paul just watching his videos and asking people about the culture and history. The action scenes were great, but they didn’t hold my attention nearly as well.
And, yeah, the action scenes were a lot of fun. Sometimes the flashing armor made it hard to see the cool choreography, but there were still plenty of very physical moments on display. I like how quick the blocks were during the closer-range battles. I’d love to know why certain characters did and didn’t have shields. And the big ship attacks—while mostly just explosions—had a lot of variation to them. The missiles darting around and how thin the beam weapons were didn’t need to be there, but it made the science fiction world more lived-in and unique.
It also helps that the acting is great. Just across the board. Everyone has these stiff mannerisms to them that communicate the layers of protocol and cultural rules that we are simply not privy to. There are sparks of love, familiarity, hatred, jealousy, and more throughout, but it’s those moments being exceptions that make them so interesting. The whole setup could’ve been boring if done wrong, but here it just comes off as endlessly fascinating.
So, yeah, like I said, lots of praise with asterisks. My only real outside complaint is that Dune: Part One wasn’t able to maintain its pace or its intrigue. There’s a flip switched where, from then on, the plot slows way down and wants to spend most of its time wandering. It starts to feel like the beginning of the second movie, not a big moment to close this first part out. And maybe that will make it so Dune: Part 2 can get right back into exciting matters, but after going through so much movie it was a real letdown. I’m obviously going to watch the second one, both out of my own curiosity, and as a reviewer, but I have to imagine it was annoying for those who watched these movies as they came out.
Which brings me neatly back to you, whoever is reading this. Because, if you haven’t seen or read Dune yet, and were wondering if the film version is worth your time, I do feel I’ve given a lot of the pros and the cons already. It’s an experience to see. It’s technical wizardry on full power. The story is a classic. But Dune: Part One has got a lot of issues that you will have to deal with. It’s not aged well. Maybe read the book beforehand and decide from there.
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