All User Reviews

Complete Garbage.

Based on only the first episode. DEI casting, white male is a douche, though literally every character is an unlikable p.o.s so this may not actually be a woke thing. Her office boss is clearly a trans or drag woman pretending to be a man, and it's done laughably bad. Her mother has an openly racist moment with a black character. I'm not sure how this is labeled as a comedy. Not one single funny moment in the entire first episode. The writing is terrible and the dialog is eye rolling, nobody talks like these people talk. The main character is the most miserable pathetic unlikable person ever. No surprise this was cancelled after 2 seasons, but I am surprised it actually made it to 2 seasons.

The sleeper should have awakened by now

Lynch brought many personal additions that were quite fantastic, possibly because he was close enough in age to Herbert.

Villeneuve, not so much. He does get a little bit more freaky, with his hairless, B&W Harkonnen aesthetics. Not unpleasant, but short of a success. His overall take is off the mark, as I see it.

He tried to flesh out the Fremen, and I say, why not?
The forced diversity of colour still makes sense only to the leftist, so racist, mind. The Fremen are a brutally homogeneous people, which is one of their main strength. So yeah, multikulti motto of diversity being strength in full action. To be fair, Lynch's Fremen were very white, but probably due to logistics and budget. And well, Berbers and Kabyls, so there's that.
Also, Bardem is the whitest actor, and the natural leader, so yeah, usual lefty racism confirmed. Bardem in one heck of a Stilgar, I have to admit.

On the other hand, a character is only as intelligent as its writers, which is a severe limitation here. Hand-to-hand may look bad-arse, but shields can't be used in the desert, because worms. Meaning it should be a rifleman's battlefield.
Also, shield + laser equals big boom. Patrol ornis use shields, and the Fremen's objective is utter destruction. Why risk your men when one or two fire teams can wreak total havoc on the enemy's harvesters by detonating the scouts?
Since combat is melee, women participate, as in all zeroes of historical examples, and are at least as good as men, because intersectionality of missing dick and heightened melanin.
Zendaya is the main offender; flying arm-lock takedowns may look cool, but how she crosses the distance every time without getting eviscerated is as mysterious as her continued employment in Hollywood.
Speaking of which, she should contractualize not appearing in scene with other females, as all and any other actress has more presence than her. Including incidental, two-lines characters.


And then there's the split between Northern and Southern Fremen (South being for the religious extremists), which makes no sense either (thus the reason for not existing in the books), and feels like modern politics injection. How can it even be stable, with the South being both safe and an overwhelming majority, one would wonder.
Herbert, not Villeneuve, has created a body of work with rabid following, which included quite a lot of effort for logical, sensical world-building. Maybe Villeneuve should learn some amount of humility, and not 'fix' the work of his betters.

All in all, Herbert was famous for his world crafting, Villeneuve can hope for infamy.

Speaking of which, no weirding modules. What Lynch was snorting at the time, science may never uncover.


Zendaya's purpose is uncovered in Part Deux: to spew blank slate, pseudo-egalitarian poppycock mixed with essentialist, hard-core racism. Quite a feat, really. And trying to bring Chani to the center of everything, which is very much neither the story nor the characters.

A lot of time is wasted on 'building' Feyd-Rautha's character. He's cartoonishly evil without the over-the-top campiness of Sting in space panties. "He can be controlled", says the BG mastermind. Yeah. Right. If _that_ is your plan B, you've already failed.

Princess Irulan's role has been puffed up, which is coherent with the books. Madsen was rather bland, but stunningly beautiful. Pugh is just bland.
Chalamet is still struggling with his character, Walken is tired, so is Skarsgard, Rampling has her Gom Jabbar stuck up her arse, and Seydoux fails at her femme fatale attempt, of all things. They're all competently going through the motions.


All in all, a better movie than the previous installment, mostly due to the easier, rising conflict narration, but less and less Dune.

Worth watching

This movie isn’t just good—it’s an instant classic! It’s already spawned (and will probably keep spawning) amazing video memes and iconic references all over social media. And no wonder—Ben Schwartz absolutely nails it as the voice of SONIC, Keanu Reeves brings his signature coolness to SHADOW, and, to top it all off, we get a double performance from Jim Carrey in one of his best comedy roles—times TWO!

It’s already available to watch online worldwide, but if it ever gets some kind of re-release or pops up in your local theater again for any reason, do yourself a favor and go watch it (in the original audio, of course).

YOU WON’T REGRET IT.

P.S.: No woke stuff here. It’s Jim Carrey—he’s never been into that.

Stopped before it even started...

I'm updating my review to be a bit less harsh on the most obvious wokeness propaganda in this movie, but that doesn't change the fact that not 30 seconds into the film, we have a gay BFF. Can't be, like, that quirky girl from grade school who's always been there for her or the lovable loser from next door with a tiny but noticeable crush on her. Must be flamboyant gay man. This film get shut off before it even got a chance to impress me and from the reviews on the Internet, I didn't miss much. Rumor has it that the running gag here is the gay BFF wants to do a makeover on her, likely with glitter and rainbows.

Not woke, just bad.

If you're like me and come to this site to check which movies are woke and which aren't, let me tell you, there's no woke content here. But honestly, there's nothing gripping either. The story's weak, the acting's bad, and I couldn't even finish it because it was that terrible. It's a shame because Frank Grillo deserves to do well; he's got some solid movies under his belt, but this ain't one of them.

Standard Mel Brooks

Nothing woke. Typical of a Mel Brooks parody though maybe on the lesser side. Some decent jokes but not quite on par with his best
movies. if you like Mel Brooks this is probably worth a watch.

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/