[Adum] -I saw a Dooney movie, directed by Dennis Villeneuve.
It was good, uh... but I didn't think it was amazing. And the people I've talked to, that loved it more than I did, also fully admit that it's good for a "part one" of a movie...?
And this isn't my only hang up, but it is something that definitely affected my experience.
There are other examples of singular stories, that split themselves into two different films, that turned out quite great.
Kill Bill: Volume 1 still functions very well as its own film: watching it still makes me feel like I should continue the rest of the story,
but the first film still feels like its own incredible journey.
When it comes to Dune: Part 1, I'm not really sure what I'm left with here: it's weird to try and judge a movie partially based on what we imagine the rest of it will probably be like.
So, judging it as its own movie, I gotta say, I wasn't particularly satisfied throughout.
There are certainly moments and sequences within this film, that are a symphony of audio-visual wonder and excitement.
There are emotional tones in this film, that are successfully communicated with clear intent,
but for me, those were just moments and scenes.
And if I'm to truly feel as though they are justified and purposeful, then they have to be in service of something.
Now I haven't seen the David Lynch Dune and I haven't read the book, so I don't really have a great frame of reference for what this all eventually leads to.
but I don't think you should have to be familiar with the source material in order to enjoy a singular film adaptation; otherwise, what's the point of adapting it if the other materials are necessary?
I'm sad to say that I wasn't particularly attached to any of the characters,
I wasn't particularly invested in the story, especially with the film's pacing and length.
I guess the length is just to be super accurate to the book; but as someone unfamiliar with the book,
it didn't really feel like the whole two and a half hours was exactly necessary.
Perhaps the pacing would have flowed better in a different format, like a miniseries.
Ihe special effects in this movie ranged from great looking to not so great looking:
there are some things that looked way too obviously CG, some of the textures like on those blimp things looked really off; which is weird, because Dennis' previous film was Blade Runner: 2049,
which has probably the best looking modern special effects I've seen.
To be fair that could partially be due to how surprisingly practical a lot of the effects were in that film.
With Dune's budget being 165 million dollars, I would kind of hope that there would be no moments where I'm like, "okay, that looks a little weird"
but then I remember that literally every recognizable actor is in this movie, so I guess that probably ate up a good chunk of the budget...
Honestly, I feel like I probably would have been able to connect with the story and characters more, if this wasn't just some gigantic celebrity dump.
There's a point where it gets kind of distracting and this film definitely crossed it.
Not to say that their performances were bad, and Oscar Isaac did a particularly great job at separating himself from other characters he's performed;
but it just felt like a bit too much for a film that's not really trying to be ironic or comedic.
It made the experience feel a bit less genuine to me, I don't know...
There's a lot of aspects to this film that I feel pretty conflicted on...
Like I said, some of the special effects were really great while others were distracting,
and the same could be said for a lot of these sci-fi concepts in this film:
I loved their shield suits when they were introduced, but those dragonfly ships uh, that looks pretty dumb...
Like, maybe if I were watching a Ralph Bakshi film, then something like that wouldn't feel so weird,
but with the tone and cast and marketing of this film, promoting itself as though it's some sort of serious sci-fi epic,
those things don't look cool, they look stupid and impractical: no one would design something like that, no one would manufacture such a thing...
It's very silly.
Another aspect I feel conflicted about is the soundtrack.
For a good chunk of the film I was absolutely loving the score: there are certain tracks that I really connected with and greatly helped my experience with the film,
but then there were other parts of the soundtrack, that felt a bit too derivative of the Blade Runner: 2049 score.
And then there were parts of the movie, where they just fucking spammed these *slow motion sound* noises.
and that was fucking irritating.
Like, I get it if you can tolerate that shit, then great, but you should also understand that in the future, that noise will be used to make fun of films from this time period.
You should remember that there was once a point where the "waterphone" sound effect prominently featured in many reality television shows now, used to be taken seriously.
[Clip] -Chef Gordon Ramsay is on a mission to turn the handlebar around.
[GPS] -Go west
*waterphone sound*
There are points in this movie where it legitimately feels as though they're spamming this *slow motion sound* effect,
it's GENUINELY insane...
There are other points in this soundtrack where they did the *woman singing sound*
thing that was prominently featured in the Snyder Cut,
whenever Wonder Woman showed up...
*woman singing sound*
Which wouldn't have been the worst, but there were some moments, where it was just completely inappropriate...
Uh, spoilers for Dune, I guess. Skip to this point in the video if you don't want to hear dooney spoilers.
Like, a character died and immediately after they started going "oh yeeooohhhh yeeaaawww!"
As she rolled down the fuckn' hill...
[Adum] -I honestly did not know that Hans Zimmer scored this film and I was surprised to find out after the fact.
Again, some parts worked really well, but there were others, that were just plain bad!
Now that we're in spoiler territory, I guess I'll talk about another special effect, that did not look very good.
In the second half of the movie, Tim Cham has another dream and it's Zendaya and there's people fighting behind her,
and I actually like this shot where the people are fighting it's fun there's some good emotion to the music there aren't a lot of obnoxious cuts during the action,
so that's great but then at the end of the shot there's a really dumb reveal, that it's Tim Cham.
Does this not look like it's unfinished?
His head looks really weirdly proportioned for the helmet!
It does not look good!
Oh yeah and the last line of the movie, is just a character saying "this is only the beginning."
We can all agree that that's awful, right?
The biggest thing that's keeping my experience of this film as an overall positive, is the first half hour or so.
When the film starts out it feels really expertly made: information is communicated in clear and effective and interesting ways,
the soundtrack and special effects and pacing and general feel and tone of the movie, it's all great,
but somewhere after that point it kind of just falls off for me...
After a certain point, I was not particularly invested or interested.
And again, there were some great scenes and sequences; but I really wish i cared about the greater picture.
I'll be rewatching this movie when part two comes out in a couple years, I guess...
And perhaps then I will have a greater appreciation for it, perhaps it will work better contextually.
My rating is subject to change, but who knows, it might be for the better.
As for now I'm giving it the big old six out of ten.
It might change to a seven it might change to a five, I don't know,
but I'm probably not gonna rewatch it until another two years from now, anyway I guess... whatever!
[Adum] -Am I just clapping watching her?
she's like, "can you please stop?" I'm singing!