Dune

After enjoying The French Dispatch so much last week, I was keen to repeat the cinema experience again as soon as possible, and so yesterday my brother and I went to go see the new Dune movie in IMAX. I’ve been excited to see it for ages, and kept telling people that I was going to read the book before it came out, but perhaps unsurprisingly I didn’t get round to even starting it.

Fortunately, it lived up to my high expectations. A true sci-fi epic, it’s beautiful, dark and compelling. The yellow colour-grading throughout is a bit Matrix-y, and there are gratuitous close-ups of Timothée Chalamet’s face, but it’s hard to complain too much about the latter. The soundtrack from Hans Zimmer is extraordinary, particularly as part of the IMAX experience when the bass sounds will vibrate your whole seat. The acting is great, with Stellan Skarsgård being a particularly terrifying villain, and the CGI, costumes and set design are also beyond incredible, which I guess was to be expected for a film with the budget of a million suns. I was in particular a fan of the way the spaceships looked - IMO they were better than Star Wars.

At 2 hours 35 the film is obviously long, but I felt gripped the whole time and it flew by. If you’d have told me we were only halfway through right before the credits rolled then I would’ve believed you. For fans of Star Wars, Blade Runner or sci-fi in general, you’ll love this movie.