Boy do I wish it was early June and the summer lay before us with it's promise of long days and movie nights. This would be a destination film through June, July and August, it just feels like the perfect launch to a vacation season littered with fun films that everyone can enjoy. By the way, the film makers knew this themselves, the town in the story is Summerville. The pandemic has robbed us of that context, but that's okay because we have another way to view this achievement. We are in the holiday season, Thanksgiving is upon us and Christmas will be not too far behind. The family gathers for the traditional dinner and then the kids want to go out and the adults want to go with them. Where can you all enjoy yourselves together? The answer is gathered in front of a big screen in your local theater taking in this welcome return to form for the "Ghostbusters" franchise.
"Ghostbusters Afterlife" is a true sequel rather than a reboot like the 2016 misfire. The events of the first two films are referenced and some of the characters that populated those two films, return for this episode. I have heard some criticism that the movie is just nostalgia product to inject in the veins of 80s junkies. If you are a fan of those 80s films, you will certainly experience a rush of emotions and warmth because of your connection to those two films, but that is not all there is to this movie and to suggest otherwise is to ignore the entertainment value presented by this movie.
McKenna Grace plays Phoebe, the granddaughter of one of the original Ghostbusters, who along with her Mother and brother, are digging through what looks like the wreck that Egon Spengler's life had become. We don't really know why Egon was not part of daughter Carrie Coon's life, but we know he was involved in something in this out of the way farm community and the dilapidated house that his family has inherited. Without saying too much, let me tell you there is a direct connection between the first film and this one. The plot is connected to the Ghostbusters greatest success and there is a chance to experience some of the same problems Peter,Ray, Egon and Winston faced but in a new context with some fun new characters but also great callbacks. The recently crowned "Sexiest Man Alive", Paul Rudd is a star of the film, but he is not the lead. Young Miss Grace is and she shoulders that responsibility exceptionally well. Phoebe is a smart girl, who is a little awkward because her interests are so deep in science. She is not a target of derision in the story, this is simply her character. She makes a friend in the new town, a kid who calls himself "Podcast" because he has a podcast. Logan Kim as the fearless, dry witted precocious Podcast has all the best lines and will delight you with his off the cuff reporting style.
As you would expect, the technical elements of the film are top notch with a very nice integration of practical camera effects along with the CGI that makes up most of the effects in films these days. The movie is full of visual call backs to the first films, the sort of thing that is refereed to as "fan service" but in this case it is entertaining on it's own as well as providing a nostalgia bump for the aforementioned addicts. The original music cues from Elmer Bernstein are used appropriately and we have to wait for the jubilant Ray Parker Jr. Theme song, but the wait is worth the while. Marketing for this movie will have been complicated by it's delay, the supply chain was ready two years ago but now things are a mess. That's too bad because I really want a Slurpee cup with the characters on the side and I wish I was dropping tiny Stay Puft marshmallow men in my hot chocolate this Christmas.
There are a few story points that are not satisfactorily dealt with. The splinter between the original Ghostbusters is hard to swallow plot device, and the connection between lost Harold Ramis' Egon and his daughter should be explained somehow, but when the resolution comes, and the new and old generation of scientists get together to fight the supernatural threats, you won't care much about those stumbling points. Director Jason Reitman, the son of the original director Ivan Reitman, seems to care deeply about these characters and their legacy and he has done them proud. Don't be afraid of no ghosts, go and enjoy a great piece of popular entertainment that will also remind you of how terrific it used to be to have a summer movie you could return to again and again.
Do you remember what it is that you loved about movies? Why you crave them, and savoir them and remember them for most of your life? This is one of those films that answers those questions. It takes us to another time, it plops us down in another place, and it tells a story that we didn't know but feels so real that it could be a memory rather than a film. Kenneth Branagh has brought us that movie, and those of you who have forgotten over the years, what he is capable of should get ready to embrace the past and recognize his talent again. This is a film that will remind you that Branagh is a writer/director of enormous ability. That he has not cast himself in the film is not a reflection on the difficulty of wearing three hats on the set, but rather an acknowledgement that the talent you need should fit the story you are telling, and he knows that.
Some critics use the phrase crowd pleaser" as a pejorative, as if the audience is irrelevant to the art. There is a school of thought that embraces this kind of view and makes ambiguous, dense and unpleasant films the sort of film that deserves praise. There are times when we want to be challenged like that, but we also go to the movies to be entertained, enlightened, and have our emotions manipulated in a way that we feel grateful for. "Belfast" is that kind of picture, one that embraces the people who see it rather than sneering at them. This is a film that you walk out of feeling thankful for having seen, rather than angry about what you have seen.
Set in 1969, as the troubles in Northern Ireland are bubbling up, Belfast tells the story of a family struggling to live life in the way most of us would like life to be lived. We want neighbors who know us and help out in tough times, we want our families to be safe from bullies of all sorts, we want to enjoy the pleasures of family life that have been built by our parents, and we don't resent the others in the neighborhood who worship differently than us or come from backgrounds dissimilar to our own. The family in this story defiantly lives the life they want in the face of political upheaval and violence. The young boy at the center of the story loves his parents and is discovering that the world does not necessarily work the way it should. There are many dramatic moments in the film that will challenge the protagonists, but in the end, it is family that trumps all and that is a good moral for a story, (as long as we are talking about a family like this).
Caitríona Balfe, Judi Dench, Jamie Dornan, Ciarán Hinds, and newcomer Jude Hill are terrific as the members of the family striving to cope with the turmoil caused by the political upheaval, economic times and personal transitions they all must face. I think Hill's Buddy is a completely believable little boy and his relationship with his grandparents is the sentimental heart of the film. Hinds has been great in a lot of movies but his part here is more elaborate and complete then anything I have seen him in before and it is a great performance because of the connection he creates with Buddy. Dornan creates a much more interesting character here than in the Fifty Shades franchise he starred in. Caitríona Balfe plays the intransigent Ma, who loves her neighborhood almost as much as she loves her family, and is loathe to leave it when opportunities for security present themselves. She could have been unsympathetic but instead the part is written in a way to make her resistance feel honorable rather than pig headed.
The film is filled with great emotional moments, that are often reflected in the movies and TV shows that the two boys in the family share. The father is almost like Will Kane from "High Noon" or Jimmy Stewart from "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance". Buddy is motivated to be better by the prodding of his mother, the crush he has on the Catholic girl in his class, and the science fiction shows he watches on TV. If this is indeed a semi-autobiographic film, Branagh gives us some good hints as to the sorts of influences he was subjected to as a child, and they turn out to be pretty good.
If you hear any discouraging words about this film, I hope you will ignore them. It may not be perfect from the perspective a a cinema snob, but it is exactly what a mature audience with a desire to be entertained should be looking for. Don't let any of those looking down on a middle brow film, stop you from taking in a great picture that will do wonders for both your heart and your love of movies.
So this is the third film in Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and so far, they are batting .333. Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was terrific, Black Widow was so-so, and this is warmed over leftovers from a meal that I don't remember ordering. It's not that it's a bad film, it just feels like the DC Universe has rubbed off on the MCU, and that the goal of creating interconnected stories has become more important than telling a compelling story. There are ten new characters that are being put on the plate in front of us and we are supposed to care immediately? I don't think so. This is a distinct group of superheroes, true, but unlike the X-Men, where we got a similar character dump, there is not as much popular history to ease us in, and the characters start fighting amongst themselves before we have much of an idea of how they fit into the whole picture of MCU films.
The Eternals seem to fit into the same category of human development as the monolith in 2001 A Space Odyssey. Their appearance seems to arrive to prompt civilization in ways that will make the planet and its inhabitants more useful to the universe. Early on however, there is an indicator of a hidden agenda, and after an hour or so of trying to get us familiar with these characters, we are let in on their true purpose and one can legitimately wonder where this idea came from. Part of the plot focuses on the creation of Celestials, who are certainly different creatures as illustrated by "Ego" from "Guardians of the Galaxy V.2" . The brief history we are given here is designed to hide some of the surprises that are instore for the film, but they end up becoming confusing and seem inconsistent with prior knowledge and even things brought up for the first time in this story.
The Ten new characters are supposed to fight Deviants, who are depicted as mindless animals early on but for some reason develop an ethos later in the film that legitimately, provokes some philosophical conversation. That conundrum though is quickly overtaken by a sudden change of heart by the leader of the Earthbound Eternals, Salma Hayek's Ajak. I say it is a sudden turn despite the fact it takes place over a 7000 year period, because in the context of what we learn about the Eternals origins, that is a blink of an eye. For a group of heroes, who supposedly think of themselves as a family, I would say they are a dysfunctional family. There are resentments, jealousy, and apparent psychological trauma in this group. The only time they seem to cooperate is when a Deviant is in the immediate vicinity. The big threat of the story therefore ends up coming primarily from the group itself, rather than an outside force. We seem to have jumped right into "Civil War" without the preceding dozen films that it took for The Avengers to get to. Richard Madden and Gemma Chan as Ikaris and Sersi, are a couple who end up on opposite sides of the dilemma, and it seems completely real that they have broken up as a couple, although there is no hint that this was the reason.
Clearly the intent of the film makers was to create a team of heroes that is as inclusive as possible. There is a great degree of diversity among the Eternals, but some of it is a little confusing given what we ultimately learn about their origins. There are some interesting ideas in the story that will not get the attention they deserve because there are so many characters. The character of Sprite is eternally pre pubescent, but 7,000 years of life have given her feelings that are not resolvable given her physical development. The emotional choice that she makes seems to be natural, but like everyone else in the story it doesn't last long. Kumail Nanjiani is a hoot as Kingo, but when the climax comes, he is no where to be found. I enjoyed Ma Dong-seok as Gilgamesh, the keeper of the nearly mad Thena played by Angelina Jolie. Their relationship is more touching and believable than any of the others in the film, and that is another problem, Jolie is under utilized and the character of Gilgamesh is not on screen for most of the second half of the film. Brian Tyree Henry as Phastos is supposed to have the sarcastic wit in the film, but it feels way more labored than his work in Godzilla v. Kong, and that is saying something. The Ikea joke falls flat and that was supposed to be the big punchline that they used in the trailer.
There is a mid-credit scene and a scene after the credits, so the MCU fans will have plenty to speculate on, but they have nothing to do with what we saw and they raise some questions about the relationships we have seen in earlier MCU films. Maybe this will be an extension of themes covered in the comic books, but it is an example of overload in the film. I'm writing this a couple of days after seeing the movie and my memory of the events is already fading. This is a movie intended to launch the new characters in the MCU but it does not do it in a way that is very inspiring. I love the series of films and I want them to grow, but somewhere along the way, the spectacle overwhelmed the characters and stories and that is a problem. Maybe it's just me, my favorite MCU films have been Iron Man, Captain America: The First Avenger and Ant-Man, which were all stand alone stories, so the team up concept takes some time getting used to. James Gunn managed to pull it off with Guardians but director Chloé Zhao, seems like she may have bitten off too big a chunk to have the same result.
As I said, I did not dislike the movie, I just didn't like it very much. Like all things, maybe it will grow on me, but for now that's where I stand.
A nostalgia soaked horror film from director Edgar Wright is just what we need for this Halloween Weekend, but does it satisfy? My companion for this film was invested in the first two thirds of the movie so much that it rivaled other films of Wright's for praise, but,there is a turn and a series of actions that happen in the film that stopped her embrace of the film in mid-hug and resulted in a display of invective that I marveled at for a hour. While I did not have the same negative reaction, I did feel the film fall from greatness to mediocrity in the third act. Regardless of it's ultimate faults, there is still much to recommend for this interesting addition to Wright's filmography.
I avoid as much as possible, simply recapping the story in these posts, but sometimes you need a little context and this is one of those times. Thomasin McKenzie plays Eloise, a slightly off center girl from a countryside community, who longs to become a fashion designer. Ellie is the kind of kid who is willing to go out in public in clothes she has designed, but she has yet to develop the thick skin needed to deflect the catty comments of schoolmates, who in a two faced manner praise her bravery, but secretly despise her and are jealous of the attention she will generate. Her mother also was interested in the industry but took her life ten years earlier, and Ellie has visions of her Mom on a regular basis. Eloise soaks herself in 60s nostalgia, because that's the style her Mother and Grandmother knew so well. Peter and Gordon, Dusty Springfield and Petula Clark ring in her head as she moves to London to attend a college of fashion design. When her wold collides with the hipster bitch she is roommates with, she decides to take a flat in a nearby neighborhood and suddenly the distance between the world she lives in and the era of her dreams begins to diminish. New visions of a girl not unlike herself, striving to make it into the pop world as a singer in 1965, fill Eloise's nights and she gets caught up in another life in a different era, with outcomes much more grim than she is prepared to face.
The 1960s settings are nicely staged with appropriate production details. I especially liked the giant "Thunderball" Poster on the cinema, as well as the stylish women's fashions of the time. The two nightclubs that Eloise sees in her visions are also startlingly beautiful in a retro way. The most beautiful thing she encounters however is Sandie, the girl aspiring to be a singer who is a near doppelganger for Eloise and who is played by Ana Taylor-Joy. Wright uses some marvelous camera tricks and clever choreography to meld the two girls from fifty years apart into one character that we see at a time, although both are present. This is a horror story in the long run, and the events in the 1960s should be enough to make us pull back in terror at what can become of a girl trying to make it in a world filled with sharks dressed as men. The first part of Sandie's story is plenty horrifying without having to elaborate too much with blood and viscera. Like all horror stories these days, there has to be a twist and this is where things start to go off the rails a bit.
Eloise's obsession is turning dangerous and she has difficulty separating her visions from her real life. There is a character set up to tie the two eras together in the real world, and naturally, this is one of the places where Wright has to cheat a bit to get in the surprise that he has in store for us. If you are turned off by characters in horror stories doing illogical things and making unsubstantiated assumptions, then you will start to feel the resentment that I referred to in the opening of this piece. Somewhere out there, a young adult woman would ask some questions that all of us could see might be relevant, not Ellie. She pursues an investigation but she ignores a key term in her search that is sitting right in front of her. The explanation that her nightmarish visions begin to follow her is the best cover that can explain why she acts the way she does, but that seems inadequate and it ignores a lot of options that she had available to her. After successfully creating a real world heroine in Eloise, who can perceive a threat from an otherwise chipper cab driver, you want to scream at her for not looking more closely at the red herring in front of her and the obvious connection to the past that she occupies every night.
At this point, the movie turns into a conventional piece of cinema horror trickery, which uses the distractions of another historical era to misdirect us while the heavy footed plot twist plays out. If you can ignore those irritating moments of character stupidity, then the follow through will be satisfying enough. I for the most part went along with it because I want the magic trick to work. The fact that I noticed the trick movement did not rob me of all the pleasure I'd already had from the film, but those missteps will bother a lot of people more than me. McKenzie and Taylor-Joy are both excellent. They create a real sense of the enthusiasms for a bygone time and watching them revel in the fashion, dance and music of the era is a pleasure. Diana Rigg makes her final screen appearance in this film in a role that is more substantial than you might have expected. The film also features Terrance Stamp who has been menacing and charming and revolting in movies for sixty years now. Stamp gets to show his persona with just a few scenes and some great close ups on his face. Wright gets the most out of the camera and lighting when he is looking at Stamp's character. It is too bad that this effort gets wasted as a plot device rather than an essential plot component.
Edgar Wright has a number of films to his credit that I have loved. His sense of humor is terrific and he has an editors eye as a director, he is capable of creating a scene in our mind that works because he knows how long the shot should last and where to cut it and what kinds of transitions to make. As a storyteller, he has taken some sharp left turns over the years that work, but maybe that is because of the genre he was working in. The tone shift and plot twist in "Last Night in Soho" don't hold together as well as the work he has done before. I would still recommend the movie, but if you get whiplash from third act character actions, don't say I did not warn you.
No one will be surprised to discover that the latest film from Wes Anderson is odd. In fact the very definition of quirky in the dictionary uses Wes Anderson as an example to clarify for us what quirky is. The idiosyncratic film maker is back with a movie that relies less on plot than on visual storytelling. That is not to say that there is not also dialogue, because that is equally as important to the visual, but also equally less relevant to the plot. A Wes Anderson film is an immersive cinema experience, but your tolerance of odd will be in direct proportion for your acceptance of this movie.
Unlike his previous two films, "Isle of Dogs" and "The Grand Budapest Hotel", this film goes out of it's way to ignore plot and embrace instead the compelling nature of language and art to make us want to follow what is going on. The outcome of any of the stories being told here is superfluous to the enjoyment we are to experience from hearing and seeing them. When writing a review of a film, I am always careful to avoid spoilers, that is completely unnecessary here because the plots are mostly meaningless and they meander around the odd characters and locales without really taking us anywhere.
This film is a set of anthologies that are held together by a conceit that is appropriate for the form of stories we are seeing. We are being presented with a tribute to writers who might have been elegant in their language and story construction, but who were mostly consumed for the pleasure of the way they write rather than the importance of the subjects that they wrote about. If you are the kind of person who picks up the New Yorker, to explore unusual slants on culture, or you read Bon Appetite, for the pleasure of preparation and the challenge of imagining taste through only words, then this movie will probably reach you. With an obituary and a brief travel prelude, to set up how everything here is connected, we move to three different stories focusing on art, politics and cooking.
The actors are all employing a deadpan, dry, style of delivery which is typical of an Anderson film. A smile would be a justification to re-shoot the scene. If an actual human emotion appears, it would undermine the atmosphere of the production and frustrate the director. He does want us to laugh, but only in regards to the absurdity of the characters of the situation, not because we are invested in anyone. We need to take pleasure in the intricate production design, or the clever Rube Goldberg physical elements. Viewers can be stimulated by the color palate or the editing or the miniatures that make up so much of the scenery, but you should not care about a single character in this story, what you should do is listen to them talk. While many of the things they say are absurd, it is the way that they say them that is amusing. Adjectives abound and sentences turn on themselves, but always with a degree of attention to grammar that draws attention to itself. You could easily enjoy just listening to the snappy dialogue, delivered in a sardonic tone, and forgo the visuals. Conversely, you could watch this film unfold with just a musical score and be equally entertained. This is a film where content is unnecessary, style is what you want.
I can't be more direct than to say this, if you do not care for Wes Anderson style films, this may be the most obnoxious film you encounter this year, it is the most like his films of any of his films I have seen. (I think he could use that last phrase in one of his movies). You will not be won over by this film. If you like the style of his movies, well that is all that this film has going for it. I'm not sure there are many who will want to explain why the plot doesn't matter, they will be too caught up with the trees to pay any attention to the forest.
I looked it up to see how it came out, Ridley Scott has directed 26 feature films, including some classics that are award worthy, and some that have been left on the curb to be disposed of. I have seen 18 of those films, so I am pretty familiar with his work, and frankly I am a fan. This movie came up and I had not heard anything about it in the production process. He has a second film that is coming in a couple of weeks that will no doubt get a lot of awards potential due to the cast. "The Last Duel" ought to have the same sort of cache because it's cast is nothing to sneeze at, but I think because this is a Twentieth Century Films release, which means it was one of a handful of movies the Disney Company acquired when it bought 20th Century Fox, it feels like it is an unwanted child. Little P.R., no Oscar talk and it is disappearing from theaters rapidly (look for it on Disney + any time now.
As it turns out, this film does not stack up to Scott's best work, but it is not down at the bottom with "Exodus: Gods and Kings", or "the Counselor", neither of which I have bothered with since I never saw a single recommendation for either. "The Last Duel" is a very well made film, it looks great, it contains some great action sequences, and the story is intriguing. The problems with the film have mostly to do with pacing and story structure, which may be partially the fault of two of the films stars since they co-wrote the script. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon have collaborated with Nicole Holofcener to bring this story, based on a book which is based on an historical incident, to the screen. Like a medieval "Rashomon", "the Last Duel" gives us different perspectives on the same event, each one favoring the person at the center of that section. So one of the problems is that we are seeing the events again, already knowing large amounts of information that are not going to change. The smaller changes, in tone and character probably needed to be emphasized in shorter segments because the length of each of these chapters is tedious. The film runs two and a half hours and unfortunately, that run time is noticeable.
Maybe this was an attempt by Affleck and Damon to answer critics who wondered how they could have worked with Harvey Weinstein and not noticed his reprehensible behavior. As a #MeToo story, Jodie Comer plays a woman who claims to have been sexually assaulted, but in a society that treats marriage as an economic contract and the wife as property, her needs in this situation seem to be the least important. Sir Jean de Carrouges (Damon), has plenty of reasons to have animosity toward his former friend and warrior, Jacques Le Gris, played by Adam Driver. While not the most sympathetic of husbands, he engages in a strategy to clear his wife of fabricating the story and also exacting revenge on his opponent. Driver's character on the other hand is supposedly shown in the most favorable light in his segment of the film, and Le Gris, still comes off as a cad, deserving of the dirtying of his name that he objects to. Marguerite de Carrouges (Comer) is trapped as a pawn for the most part in a misogynistic society that treats women as suspect simply for being women. The questions that get asked in the inquiry are humiliating and the "science" accepted at that time makes the process even worse for her. There is also a clear stigmatization of women as sexual beings, despite their sexuality being critical to the purpose of marriage which was to prove heirs. In a nod to some of the hypocrisy we see in the #MeToo movement of today, women are just as capable as men of bending events to their prejudices. Marguerite cannot even count on her best friend.
All of the soap opera and segments of battle and political intrigue that took place in the first two hours is largely there to set up the climatic title moment. Scott is in his element here, having made "Gladiator" as well as "Robin Hood" and "Kingdom of Heaven", he knows his way around brutal one on one combat. Damon and Driver go at each other both mounted and unmounted . There are staves, axes, swords, daggers, gauntlets and assorted blood sweat and tears in the arena. All the while, we are reminded of the stakes because they are sitting right there, waiting to burn under the woman in question if the combat goes the wrong way for her. This actual historical event is the last recorded case of trial by combat to determine who is the just party. Since I did no background research before seeing the film, and I did not know the outcome, that probably added to the impact the combat sequence had on me.
So I suspect this film will soon be forgotten, but it does have some strong elements to recommend it. Affleck plays a conniving count who uses political power to protect his prized friendships, Damon builds more action hero cred with his battle scenes, Driver gets to be tall, dark, and handsome, but Jodie Comer is the one who emerges with the most credibility after our two and a half hours spent on this arcane event.
Alright, I've waited a long time for this film. The expectations were high, the talent is there, the source is impeccable but the task is daunting. So the question is, did Denis Villeneuve manage to overcome the obstacles to making "Dune" into a cogent film that will be embraced by the public. The short answer is "yes, sort of". but the more accurate answer is that there continues to be a density to the story that anyone would have difficulty cutting through without having to change elements of the story in some way. All movies made from books will reflect the sensibilities of the writers, the producers and ultimately the director. That means that this can correctly be described as Villeneuve's Dune. It certainly contains enough of the Frank Herbert source material to keep fans of the landmark book and serial novels happy.
The movie is two and a half hours long, and I have seen it twice. The podcast today spent more than an hour dissecting it. I have had multiple conversations with my daughter about the film, and I reread the novel a week ago. I also spent two and a half hours with the 1984 version form David Lynch. This commentary then comes from the perspective of someone who deeply cares about the source material and the films made from them. Denis Villeneuve has crafted a handsome, completely credible and mostly entertaining version of this story. Because the film is only the first part of the original Dune Book, I will have to withhold some judgements about the story elements that deal with the antagonists in the saga. Although the Harkonnen are represented on screen, their presence is minimal at the moment, and that is a bit of a letdown.
One advantage that the new film takes advantage of is the character development. Paul and Duke Leto are given more time to show their relationship in this film. The extra time on Caladan, the Atreides' home planet will help put in contrast the stark environment on Arrakis. Caladan is lush with forests, meadows and lakes and oceans that indicate a thriving ecosphere. The Atreides have had it easy and they will be going into an environment dramatically at odds with their previous existence. The Duke tries to explain to Paul what desert power will be, but we can't know until we are steeped in it, what all it will include. The relationship between Paul and his mother, the Lady Jessica, played by Rebecca Ferguson, is also deeper here, providing a glimpse at how she is attempting to immerse him in the Bene Gesserit traditions and skills. At times, Timothée Chalamet as Paul looks like a lost emo kid, wandering across the hillsides in his black priests jacket. The few times he comes out of the dark introspection are when he meets with his mentor/stand-in older brother figure Duncan Idaho, played by Jason Momoa. The actor has a charismatic persona that helps us shortcut our way into his relationship with Paul. There is an added sequence with Momoa and Sharon Duncan-Brewster as Dr. Keynes, that improves the story and does these two characters a bit more justice than they receive in the book or earlier film.
One of the problems with adapting the book to film is that there are so many competing interests and political entanglements, that it would be easy to miss important components. David Lynch tried to cram this information into narration, internal thoughts and the equivalent of early Google searches. The script by Villeneuve and cowriters Jon Spaihts and Eric Roth, doesn't bother to worry about most of that. The story flows pretty smoothly as a result, but a lot of the rich detail that makes the book so intriguing is lost. There is just enough of the Bene Gesserit story to explain why Paul is unique and potentially the most significant result of their breeding program. The complex connection between the Harkonnen and Atreides clans is not detailed. Paul's visions are inserted regularly but they are inconsistent and the reasons for that inconsistency are not really explained by the film, although readers of the book will understand. Thufir Hawat is treated as a cuddly teddy bear rather than the master of assassins, Dr. Yueh's imperial conditioning is not explained, nor is the manner of that conditioning being broken. The importance of his role as the traitor is minimized as a result, making the conspiracy a lot less interesting. I did think there were some good hints at the poet in the warrior Gurney Halleck, played by Josh Brolin. Some of these characters disappear from this film, but they should be a part of the second film when it arrives. It does make it hard to evaluate this as a stand alone film because of those threads that are dangling.
The greatest improvement from the 84 film, is the use of the Fremen culure, especially in the sequence where Paul and Jessica are discovered in the deep desert after their escape from Arrakeen. This is basically the climax of the film, although we did just have a complete invasion of the planet by hostile forces. Paul's acceptance into the sietch led by Stilgar is an important step on his ascension to power. If you know the book, you know how Paul hesitates not merely because killing is new to him, but he foresees each act of violence on his part as cementing the path to a bloody jihad that he is trying to avoid. I was not sure that the film clarifies this as much as might be needed by audiences unfamiliar with the book.
I've already made some passing comparisons to the David Lynch film, so inevitably there are more. On the favorable side of the ledger, the ornithopters in this version are more interesting and certainly more dynamic. They also more closely resemble the craft described by Herbert's prose. While CGI can often ruin our engagement with a film, when it is used correctly, it enhances the visions we see. The sandworms of Arrakis are much more believable in this new edition of the story than the mechanical miniatures used back in 84. There was only one brief image of a sandworm being ridden in the film, but it looks like this will far outpace to somewhat clunky techniques that were requires thirty-seven years ago. Even though it looks less realistic, I still prefer the animated shield work of the 84 film to the digital distortion of the new version. It just looks more interesting, even if it seems less realistic. The costumes and production design from the older film, also seem stronger to me, maybe because the colors pop and the detail is rich. Villeneuve has created utilitarian props and sets to present the characters in, Lynch's vision is soaked in the mythology of each of the settings. Giedi Prime, the Harkonnen home planet is dark and fuzzy in Villeneuve's film, Lynch's industrial sensibility was so well matched with this location in his film that it is indelible and far superior. Little things like the box the Reverend Mother uses to test Paul, are more ornate and interesting in the 84 film.
It is certainly a matter of style and taste so with the minimalist leanings of contemporary design, Villeneuve's choices are probably fine. I simply like a broader color palate to look at. While the design of the Bene Gesserit gowns was not stupendous in 84, the 2021 outfits look like they come from dead nurses in a hospital from 1883.
We have lots of things to look at that are superior in the new film, but let's not dismiss the unusual and intriguing from the Lynch Film. Of course the two movies are great ways to see the difference a director can make in a film. The aesthetics in particular matter with these two directors. The action sequences in the current version of the film are more coherent and visually spectacular so that is another selling point to the new version.
To complete the current review, I will update this post with a link to the podcast when it is completed. For now let me say I am happy with the new version of Dune. I don't think it cracks the nut entirely on the intricate internal thoughts from the book, but it does streamline the story and make it very accessible to the audience. Every time one of the IMAX shots arrived, I was reminded of the work that David Lean did in "Lawrence of Arabia". The film looks amazing in the macro sense but loses a little in the intimate scenes. We will be getting more of some of the characters in the second part so I will wait until then to expand on Stilgar and Chani.
By all means, see this on the big screen. Save an HBO Max viewing for your fourth or fith time seeing the film. You will be glad you paid to go to a theater.
