Bad reviews are the mind-killer
Let’s be real: ‘Dune’ (2021) is as good as it gets for sci-fi blockbuster storytelling
Dune currently holds an 83% on Rotten Tomatoes. Standard critiques of the review aggregator aside, Denis Villeneuve’s 2021 adaptation of the classic 1965 sci-fi novel seems criminally underrated by barely clearing the “B minus” hurdle.
That’s because I don’t think anyone can do better with the source material than what Villeneuve and his team have accomplished with this film. Adapting an extremely complex 900-page novel for a mainstream audience is not easy. Alejandro Jodorowsky tried, David Lynch tried, the SyFy channel tried.
To cite the words of Bene Gesserit Reverend Gaius Helen Mohiam (from the novel): They tried and died.
Villeneuve has succeeded. His visionary team has painstakingly recreated a world and a narrative that would slip through the fingers of lesser filmmakers like sand.
Whereas all our blockbuster films seem embarrassed about what they are — Marvel, Star Wars, and Jurassic World heroes alike forced to wink and acknowledge the story they are telling is nothing but a joke — this Dune takes itself seriously.
This Dune isn’t original — it’s an adaptation, it’s a remake, etc. — but in its boldness to tell…
