[TrueFaith77]

Dune (Denis Villeneuve)

Denis Villeneuve's #DUNE begs the questions: Is it too dull to accuse of "Fascism"? No! Look beyond the intellectual murk of the beige-on-beige-on-beige Brutalism of the futuristic sci-fi production design and photography. DUNE fans will geek out on Easter eggs but popular audiences will be left unimpressed: Villeneuve casts obnoxious and pouty Timothee Chalomet as protagonist Paul because he looks a rodent (the character's future namesake), a sandworm's homage--the film's cgi anti-climax--foreshadows Paul's unfathomable genetic destiny, Jason Mamoa's sacrifice as Duncan Idaho feels meaningless (rather than legendary), and more. Remember that David Lynch's 1984 DUNE imaginatively interprets--and transcends--the source material to examine culture personally, constituting an under-appreciated mystic and triumphant vision. Through idiosyncratic imagery, Lynch conveys religious longing for salvation and justice: hypnotic images of obsidian water drops, uncontainable sexual surrealism contradicting and expressing sterile eugenic planning. Meanwhile, Villeneuve conflates puppy love with genocide. Yes, Zandaya's narration makes this as hiply depressing as an episode of EUPHORIA. Compare that to Lynch's myth-making and palpably mythic prologue delivered by Virginia Madsen. A moral let-down: Villeneuve's #DUNE ends mid-story, sprinkled with spice-dust hallucinations as "coming attractions." At over 2-1/2 hours, it all amounts to movie history's longest trailer. In Villeneuve's half-adaptation, Paul's revenge quest erases the moral challenge--a fatalistic humanism--of even Frank Herbert's book. Instead, Villeneuve provides exposition that establishes religion as merely a manipulatable human impulse ("superstition")--making the Middle Eastern and Irish tones in Hans Zimmer's score particularly risible and never rousing (derivative of Peter Gabriel's THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST and Zimmer/Junkie XL's own Wonder Woman theme in BATMAN V SUPERMAN). Through the audience proxy Paul's ratty brattiness, Villeneuve reduces Faith to a final solution of vengeance exacted upon irredeemable races by an oppressed tribe. Consumerism IS the new Fascism. Even sandworms--and a COVID-conquered global populace--bow down to it. Audiences don't need--and I predict won't want--the promised sequel. We live its nightmare.