All User Reviews

Irrevocably suffers in comparison

I'm late to the party, and so shan't be long.

This is a decent movie, with a consequential budget, and it shows in many places. The dragonfly-like ornis, as an exemple.
It looks too flat for my tastes (the curse of digital cinematography), and lacks Lynch's creative rage. Villeneuve is still inarguably competent.

The casting is a weak point. Paul Atreides character concept is a thoroughbred: bred for power, born to power, forged through power. This character does not start off weak, and his journey is not becoming a leader, it's accepting the price of ambition / manifest destiny.
MacLachlan exuded (the expected) arrogance; Chalamet is an emo teenage girl; his character has no emotional restraint nor self-control. The only worse casting decision would have been the ubiquitous Pascal. Or maybe not. Too old, but cries better.

Speaking of ubiquitous: Zendaya. Why? Or how? Or any number of questions. Did she sleep with the new Weinstein?

The rest of the cast ranges from totally adequate to quite good, such as Momoa and Brolin.

I would mention Ferguson, a good actress burdened with a badly rewritten role, and Duncan-Brewster, set up to fail as an obvious gender-swapped diversity hire filling in von Sydow's boots.
She's quite good, probably needed the big profile job, and quite possibly could have succeeded on talent alone. But everything has its cost, and well, obvious DIE hire.

Regarding so-called diversity, ie: skin colour, how can an insular population from an insular planet range from Bardem to Olusanmokun? I mean, a biological reason, not socialist drivel.
Yes, Arrakis is probably bigger than Africa. But there are "millions of Fremen". Millions. Small numbers. Iowa has millions of people. And no distinct countries. Inter-breeding should have averaged the population in time. Unless cultural taboo. And thus probably countries.

Also, feminist angle. Villeneuve wanted "strong female roles". Like maybe an elitist sorority conspiring to influence human evolution across millennia and the known universe?
And turned the basically single Bene Gesserit character in Part One into a parody. And had to gender-swap another character.
Also, good luck with that in the subsequent movies, as Herbert was a staunch critic of "current day" (ie : 80s - 90s) feminism.
As in, the wild offshoot of BG were called Honored Matres. As in bad Latin and mattresses. And deemed dangerous as they toyed with a basic human instinct that threatened humanity itself.
We'll see how Villeneuve spins that in 2028, with a 6 per year per thousand marriage rate.
But hey, Herbert did have good instincts.


Quick mention of the score, which I would rate a tad lower than Lanois' (of which it is sometimes very reminiscent), but it's probably nostalgia speaking.



All in all, this will be yet another worthy attempt to bring Dune to the big screen (who goes to theaters anymore, though?), but certainly not Jackson's LotR.

Very clever and entertaining multi-plot film

There were only a few scenes that illustrated woke themes but they dissipated quickly and were not forced as a backdrop or continuously throughout the movie. Plenty of intrigue, suspense, action, comedic scenarios, and clever plot twists. Very enjoyable.

Entertaining action with skillful camera work

Quite a good movie with decent dialogue and a script that's fairly easy to follow - even with the frequent cuts/flashbacks to the past. Some of the action is flagrantly bombastic, but it doesn't destroy the positives of the film.

Beautiful filmography and intriguing action plot in this 3rd of the Equalizer series. Highly recommend seeing the prequels first. No wokeness detected, some good lessons in character and communication, and admittedly requires a bit of suspension of belief/reality. Still very good.

Methodical, well-built, suspense and drama thriller

I'm a sucker for great cinematography in place of nature around the world, so putting that bias aside - or at least into context - this film did a great job of building the characters and telling the viewer about them at a decent pace while the story develops. There's realistic and sensible dialogue, kinetic action scenes that engage, and a crescendo to the final reveal that is rewarding. The attention given to native tribes and lessons from the past isn't preachy or overt victimization haranguing, but more a somber nod to factual faults and mistakes of a different era. Didn't detect any real wokeness. Beautiful movie.

Strong script/show idea, very weak fulfillment

I rated the show as 'poor' because the acting is incredibly subpar and seems either desperately forced or disconnected at times - especially by some characters. The plot has many and repeating holes and impracticalities that are difficult to simply ignore and overlook in order to accept the situations or premises.
The major factor of 'wokeness' is the heavy emphasis on 'girl boss' roles that chronically belittle, shame, correct, outperform their male counterparts. That wouldn't be acceptable if roles were reversed and as is makes for a very impractical and 'false reality' version of a plot and series. Wondering if my perception was biased or off, I checked. Nope - it was intentional and forced: https://thenerdsofcolor.org/2023/03/23/hong-chau-on-gender-dynamics-and-tropes-in-netflixs-the-night-agent/
https://www.dexerto.com/tv-movies/the-night-agent-showrunner-reveals-the-one-old-trope-he-wants-to-break-every-season-3037703/

Totally DEI based

I'm not going to spend much time writing these lines since the movie isn't worth it. However, for anyone seeking an objective take on the woke content, it can be summarized as follows:

- Gay marriage has nothing to do with the plot; it's just there for the sake of being there.
- The villains are portrayed as NRA members.
- The bad guys are consistently depicted as following the "white supremacist" trope.
- Meat consumption is portrayed negatively, and the inclusion of graphic slaughterhouse scenes feels completely irrelevant to the plot, appearing more like vegan propaganda.

Not woke

Not the best movie ever but rather entertaining. It revolves around the occupation of germany by the allies which is a topic rarely treated by cinema. The movie shows some pretty shocking stuff, which is accurate to represent the nightmare that was post war Germany, although there’s some romantisation.

The movie is not woke and believe it or not it used to be standard in the pre pandemic world 😢.

Great show

Just tells a story. The characters are organic. If it's woke it's buried under enough story to take away the bad smell of wokery

Horrible

Just a vehicle for Neil Gaiman to be invited to more lefty parties

Gets into the woke atraight away

Main hero is an incompetent white male. They conflate trying to limit immigration with fascism half way through thebfirst episode.

Could have been interesting but it sh*t the bed straight out if the posts.

Mixed race couple, white people racist. The lead black female is annoying racist character. The acting is bad, the fx are bad,
the lighting and cinematography is bad. Everything about this screams no budget armature hour. Also at the 38 minute mark when I
gave up there is absolutely nothing that would make this a horror movie as advertised.