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Paul Atreides is the ducal heir of House Atreides led by his father Leto Atreides who is bestowed by the Emperor, stewardship of Arrakis, a desert planet rich in spice but local to the Fremen people. Lady Jessica, Paul's mother, is a consort to Leto and also a Bene Gesserit, a social, religious and political force composed of women who have trained their bodies through years of physical and mental conditioning to obtain Superhuman powers that has been passed down to Paul. As a result, Paul has foresight and dreams of a woman and glimpses of an unknown future he doesn't understand. Upon having these dreams, Paul is forced to become the "messiah", the "chosen one," through actions brought on by powerful forces who want to stake claim to Arrakis and the Spice.
This is the general synopsis and a touch of story "beats/plot points" to hopefully not spoil it for you but give you the gist of the movie. The movie is dense. This movie is large in scope and I feel, just like it was stated in the trailer, 'This is just the beginning' because if you can think of Game of Thrones mixed with Avatar, The Matrix and Star Wars, this film has it all combined into this great movie. I found myself liking this to more Game of Thrones but I couldn't be more transfixed to the screen. If there is anything you need to know about this movie before making a commitment to watching it, is that you MUST see this in the cinema! Yes a little long-ish, but I don't think a small screen (no matter how big your TV/screen is) is going to capture the vastness, the quality, the depth, the detail, the EVERYTHING, in this movie. Denis put his elbow and foot into this movie because the visuals are stunning. The world is soo realised. the architecture, the vehicles, the costumes, everything looks great and distinctive. You do get a sense of scale with the size of the vehicles and the infamous sandworm. In a shot, you will see the size difference with these things. The planet of Arrakis is a character all onto itself.
As for the music, Hans Zimmer did a number on this one and knowing he did the score, has made me want to go to another concert of his. It's great! It's Epic! It's Dune! I doubt he would be behind the sound design but the sound design is also great as well, literally, I cannot fault the visuals nor the sound.
The acting? Not a single weak link in the chain of brilliant actors, Oscar, Timothée, Rebecca, Zendaya, Javier, Chang, Stellan, Josh, Saron and Jason...I'm likely missing someone out but the point here is that, everyone is great, phenomenal even. The story lends itself to be shakespearian which carries a certain weight to it. This means, any actor worth their salt are essentially inclined to bring out all their dramatic chops...and they did. Tim is great in this. I might need to see him in something else but he does soo much and sometimes even when doing soo little. The only gripe I had with this movie is that, all the actors who identify as a person of colour seem to have shorter roles. But all in all, I cannot wait for the second movie. Hopefully we can see a lot of these characters return and the world to open out even bigger...well the galaxy.
