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| Dune |
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  (4/10)
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Runtime: 190 |
| Public Rating: 7.19 (26 votes) |
Director: David Lynch |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Sci-Fi/ Adventure |
Year: 1984 |
| Writer(s): David Lynch |
| Distributor: 1 |
| Reviewed by: Matthew Coats |
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With its messianic hero, mystical forces, interplanetary warfare, and giant sandworm monsters, Frank Herbert's supercult novel "Dune" was jsut sitting there, daring some producer to make it a movie. Many sane producers did resist, knowing that a movie version of Dune would bee too long, too dark, too unweildly, and too expensive. It took Dino DeLaurentis to overlook al the potential pitfalls and throw large sums of money ($50 million) into the project.
Briefly, Dsune is the story of three planets at war over a life giving spice that grows only on a fourth planet - the planet called Dune. The evil emperor of Kaitain (Jose Ferrer) has allied himself with the grotesque leader of the Harkonnens to plunder Dune's natural resources and enslave its What no one realizes is that the young prince of the third planet, Caladan (Kyle McLachlan), is in fact the long awaited Messiah, and that once he arrives on Dunehe will discover his true destiny, devolp his mystical powers, and lead Dune's underground citizens to revolt and victory.
Confusing, right? Confusion is the natural response to a narrative text that involves four planets, a complex conspiracy, a lot of elaborate folklore, and a whole slew of characters who are not at first what they seem. Lynch tries to help my cramming in some densly detailed exposition before the action starts. But all he manages to do is confuse us further. Only the people who have read and loved the book can understand what's going on here. Needless to say, I didn't understand this movie at all.
Needless to say, nobody liked thsi movie. It wasn't "high concept" enough to attract a main stream audience. It wasn't true enough to the novel to please "Dune" cultists. It wasn't very satisfying for David Lynch fans, who were nto accustomed to seeing him compromise his eccentric vision in the spirit of collaboration. It died away so quickly and quietly, that no one thinks of it anymore. It's the most invisible of all the failed blockbusters: a true black hole.
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