‘Dune’ review: The movie tells a rich story, but fans will have to wait for the rest

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A young messiah finally finds his calling, after two long hours and the change, in “Dune” (which, it should be noted, is actually “Dune: Part 1”, although this fact is not exactly well advertised in the marketing material. of the movie). . “It Begins”, as it says, quite accurately, on one of the posters for the new film, superbly adapted by director Denis Villeneuve (“Arrival”), from a clever script he co-wrote with Eric Roth and Jon Spaihts, based on the 1965 beloved and legendarily maladaptive science fiction work of novelist Frank Herbert.

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So maybe you don’t exactly expect a full shutdown.

However, the story comes to a good stopping point if you set your expectations accordingly: for what turns out to be the first half of a gigantic bedtime story, set in AD 10,091, on the inhospitable desert planet of Arrakis, whose nickname lends the film its title. Arrakis is the repository of hallucinogenic “spice” mines – the source of what is known as life-extending, mental-enhancing “mélange” that everyone in the galactic empire wants. It is sure to give you vivid dreams (the movie, not the spice). Perhaps not as vivid as those experienced by the film’s psychic hero Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), the heir apparent to his father’s duchy, and all that spice. But vivid anyway.

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Imagine sand as far as the eye can see, huge sandworms and spaceships that look like levitating office buildings, as well as something called ornithopters, which are a cross between helicopters and dragonflies. To survive in the heat of Arrakis, everyone who arrives there wears a “distillation suit”, which recycles sweat and urine from the body. Everything is quite spectacular and amazing, in the original sense of the word: instilling awe and a bit of fear (as well as a touch of disgust).

This is where fear comes in: As the film progresses, majestic, epic, with a Hans Zimmer soundtrack that could have been written for elephant and alpine trunk, Paul and his parents (Oscar Isaac and Rebecca Ferguson) will move to Arrakis. The move is at the behest of an invisible emperor, who has ousted the planet’s previous overseers of spice production: the Harkonnen, left behind by a Jabba the Hut-looking baron (Stellan Skarsgard).

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It might help to think of the whole thing as some kind of mob turf war, set in space – enemies and treachery are everywhere. The Harkonnen want their drug market back. And maybe the new job on Arrakis isn’t really a promotion for the House of Atreides, after all, but a way for the emperor to get rid of them, aided by his henchmen, the Sardaukar. To make matters worse are the planet’s oppressed natives, the Fremen, free men, who seem to hate everyone.

And don’t forget the sandworms.

But all of that is really the backdrop to the rise of a hero saga. It is the more poignant of the two narratives, and one that rests squarely on the narrow and unlikely shoulders of Pablo, whom some say might be the One: the “Mahdi” of legend, sent to bring out the Fremen, as to the Israelites from slavery. Paul, as you see, has been blessed / cursed with strange and yet untapped abilities, inherited from his mother, a member of an order of women called the Bene Gesserit. (Get used to the pseudo-religious gibberish. It comes fast and furious. Between that and the loud soundtrack, and the fact that various characters are telepathic and / or communicate through sign language, much of what would otherwise be It could be an explanatory or unintelligible dialogue.)

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And yet “Dune” is somehow almost purely enjoyable and rarely tedious, despite its gigantic runtime and small imperfections.

Villeneuve was apparently right in insisting that he be allowed to break the book into two parts. There’s a lot going on here – a quasi-biblical space opera, part “Lawrence of Arabia, and part mobster movie – and splitting it into two movies has allowed her to take her time with the story and tell it richly and unhurriedly.” (For a practical lesson on how not to adapt “Dune,” check out David Lynch’s 1984 version, which, even at 137 minutes, felt too condensed and frantic, without the sense of grandeur and, well, breadth of the source material. ).

The film is attractive to the eye, no doubt. But its cast is substantial: Josh Brolin and Jason Momoa as the Duke’s servants; Javier Bardem and Zendaya as Fremen rebels, the latter of whom keeps appearing to Paul in dreams. Then there’s Paul, whom the characters keep referring to as a child. Chalamet is well chosen: an almost too cute man who harbors hidden strength and intensity. When you finally learn to take advantage of it, it lands with a satisfying weight, even if it makes you wait, in a mixture of frustration and satisfaction, until the next chapter.

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Three stars. Rated PG-13. In theaters in the area; also available on HBO Max. It contains sequences of strong violence, some disturbing images and suggestive material. 155 minutes.

Rating guide: four-star masterpiece, three-star very good, two-star fine, one poor star, no star wasted time.