Denis Villeneuve, the ultra-talented director of Prisoners, Enemy, Blade Runner 2049 and First Contact, tackles a monument of science fiction: Dune. After David Lynch broke his teeth on the project in the 1980s, Denis Villeneuve also embarked on the adaptation of Frank Herbert's classic. And to surround him, he has selected a truly hallucinating cast composed of Timothée Chalamet (Paul Atreides), Rebecca Ferguson (Jessica Atreides), Oscar Isaac (Duke Leto Atreides), Jason Momoa (Dunca Idaho), Stellan Skarsgard (Baron Harkonnen), Josh Brolin (Gurney Halleck), Javier Bardem (Stilgar), Dave Bautista (Rabban Harkonnen), Charlotte Rampling (Reverend Mother Mohiam) or Zendaya (Chani).
Dune: an ambitious work
The least we can say is that Denis Villeneuve did not do things by halves. He signs a monumental work, a grandiose show, a faithful adaptation and a film totally anchored in the spirit of the times. Dune is an intelligent feature film, able to speak to neophytes, but also to seduce hardcore fans. The director tames a novel, with a verve of its own, reputed to be very difficult to adapt. 
Everything is gigantic in Dune : the sets, the special effects, the costumes, the actors, the photography (especially) is a lesson in cinema, show and more broadly art as a whole. An admirable show where an absolutely superb photography is expressed, in sumptuous desert settings, straight out of the imagination of its goldsmith. We must also highlight the incredible sound design, of magnificent efficiency. With Dune, Denis Villeneuve composes a grandiose space-opera where a political narrative and filiation is expressed through a breathtaking show at all times. Dune is also proof that blockbusters always have things to offer and tell, and that the scale and ambition of this kind of production can always marry with a form of intimacy, with more human themes. Emotional springs that are expressed mainly through the character of Paul. 
Thimothée Chalamet thus offers a surprisingly human performance, which is noticeable in relation to a voluntary or unintentional immateriality of certain protagonists. Superlatives could be used until the ink is out. Dune is a work of science fiction that will undeniably make history in cinema, placing itself among the masterpieces and classics in the making, just like the first Star Wars.
A film sometimes disembodied?
But if we had to quibble, Dune is unfortunately not free of any defect. Already, its length, more than 2h30, can end up running out of steam its audience. The omnipresent music of Hans Zimmer, and the total absence of a break in tone and rhythm, make Dune a sometimes tiring film. Denis Villeneuve's ambition sometimes exceeds him. The filmmaker watches himself film in an excess of confidence that is felt on the screen: too slow and grandiloquent situation, redundant visions too present, soft belly in the middle of the story. Non Dune isn't perfect, no matter what professional critics say. 
Dune sometimes sounds like a long pompous walk, which conscientiously follows Paul's prophecy, via an excess of explanations, chatter, and a laborious advance in a straight line. Denis Villeneuve chooses to explain to his viewers what they need to know rather than let them feel, let them observe, let them get lost in the immensity of this desert and finally let his image speak. Paradoxically, despite its 2h35 of film, Dune is perhaps the fastest work of its author. Less contemplative than Blade Runner 2049, Dune does not always leave time for its image to become permanently embedded in the minds of its viewers. Example with the design of the Baron, too quickly touched, which deserved that the camera dwell more on its impressive aesthetic, disturbing and of a hallucinating force. Denis Villeneuve sometimes leaves the spectator as an eyewitness, who never really participates, and who lets himself be carried away by a surplus of observations. The work is thus sometimes disembodied, and emotions slip to the surface, without ever reaching the heart of its audience. Thus, it is clearly hypnotic, but sometimes a little bland. https://youtu.be/CjVqieIWGjM
