Dune (2021) review

Previous attempts to film Dune failed because they tried to explain it. Villeneuve's version simply shows it, trusts the audience to keep up, and lets the scale do the talking. It is the first adaptation that understands the novel is about geography and power rather than about plot.

The Adaptation Strategy

The film covers roughly the first half of Herbert's novel, ending with Paul and Jessica joining the Fremen. That decision is the film's most important structural choice: by not compressing the entire book into one film, Villeneuve gives the material room to breathe and avoids the fate of the 1984 version, which is incomprehensible to anyone who has not read the source.

The screenplay by Villeneuve, Jon Spaihts, and Eric Roth strips out most of Herbert's internal monologue and much of the political detail, replacing exposition with visual information. The film establishes the Spice economy through a single briefing scene, the Great Houses through costume and staging, and the Fremen through the film's final act. It is unusually disciplined adaptation work.

Read more about sci-fi cinema in our Science Fiction genre hub, explore the work of Denis Villeneuve in our directors section, or see where this film lands in our ranked film lists.

Scale and Craft

Greig Fraser won an Oscar for the photography, and the film's visual strategy is built on contrast: enormous, empty desert landscapes against small human figures. Villeneuve repeatedly places characters at the bottom of the frame with the environment dominating above them, which communicates the novel's central idea about individual insignificance far more efficiently than dialogue could.

The sound design is the film's most underrated element, and Hans Zimmer's score is deliberately anti-melodic — bagpipes, distorted female vocals, and percussion rather than themes. The result is a film that feels physically enormous. The production design, particularly the ornithopters and the Arrakis architecture, is Brutalist and functional rather than decorative, which suits Herbert's world better than the ornate designs of previous adaptations.

Cast and Characterisation

Timothée Chalamet's Paul is well cast because he is believably young and believably intelligent without being precocious. The film's Paul is a boy being moved around by forces he does not control, and Chalamet plays the passivity without making it boring. Rebecca Ferguson's Lady Jessica is the film's strongest performance — she is a woman navigating three competing loyalties simultaneously and the film gives her the space to do it.

The supporting cast is exceptional and largely underused, which is a consequence of splitting the novel. Oscar Isaac's Leto, Josh Brolin's Gurney, Jason Momoa's Duncan, and Stellan Skarsgård's Baron Harkonnen all make strong impressions with limited screen time. Zendaya's Chani appears almost entirely in visions, which is a structural choice that pays off in the sequel rather than here.

What Is Missing

The film's most significant omission is Herbert's ecology. The novel is deeply concerned with the relationship between the Fremen, the sandworms, and the water cycle of Arrakis, and the film reduces this to atmosphere. The political economy of the Spice is sketched rather than explained, and the film's treatment of the Bene Gesserit is thinner than the source material.

The film also ends mid-story, which is a legitimate frustration for viewers who did not know it was a two-part adaptation. Dune: Part Two resolves this, and the two films together constitute the most complete adaptation of the novel yet made. Judged on its own, Part One is a superb piece of world-building with an unsatisfying conclusion.

Themes and ideas

• Empire and resource extraction
• Prophecy as political tool
• Individual insignificance
• Colonialism