Dune (1984)

Director: David Lynch
Starring: Kyle MacLachlan, Virginia Madsen, Francesca Annis

Synopsis:
Two rival noble houses are pitted against each other on the desert planet Arrakis in a war over rare spice melange.

Impressions:
This malformed creature crawled out of the corpse of Alejandro Jodorowsky's ambitious (and more than a little insane) project to make a film adaptation of Dune. It features a fairly well-regarded (if weird) director and boasts an impressive ensemble cast. The music by Toto is amazing and the special effects, sets and costuming are pretty good too. Now, you note that I described the movie as a "malformed creature". That's because the source material is both too dense and too sprawling to comfortably adapt in a standard feature's runtime. That means that the uninitiated are going to have a hard time following along. Diversions from the search material like the focus on the Atreides signet and conflating "the weirding way" with some dumb sound weapon make little sense. Preserving the copious internal monologuing of the novel is rather awkward onscreen. I also have a bit of a problem with the casting, particularly Paul. I have nothing against Kyle MacLachlan, but in the book, Paul is rather precocious 15-year-old. However, when you put a twenty-something in the role, he comes off as fairly immature. Also, maybe it's just me, but I'd imagine Patrick Stewart more as Thufir than Gurney, but whatever. Anyway, all told, it's a grand mess, but for its pop culture significance, you may want to give it a watch. Then go watch Jodorowsky's Dune to understand why some of the things are the way they are.

Rating:
50/50