In an age of popular media saturated with sci-fi and superpowers, you’d think you wouldn’t be able to salvage anything new in the genre. Turns out that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Villeneuve gives new scale to the genre, new gravitas and possibilities with cinema.
Thoughtful, expansive cinematography and attentive set pieces are really what make this film so memorable, if rather slow-moving at times.
Sci-fi, at it’s best, can be deeply thought-provoking, examining the crannies and instincts of humanity, sometimes predicting where it’s headed — like ‘Star Trek’ did in the 1960s. ‘Dune’ is hugely ambitious in its scale, and perhaps crucially, it takes its time with world-building. Who says sci-fi films can’t have the gravitas of an oscar-bait drama? In the hands of other directors, this film might’ve come off as kitschy, but what it lacks in spectacle it makes up for in scale, score, and grandiose.
