Movie Review: Dune (1984)

Was David Lynch the right person to adapt this novel? Probably not, but that’s easy to say in hindsight. At the time, Lynch wasn’t that established as a Hollywood filmmaker. He had a small little experimental film, Eraserhead, which got some traction, and he followed it up with the critically acclaimed The Elephant Man, which is about as mainstream and traditional as Lynch films go. At the time, he wasn’t quite the David Lynch we’ve come to know. Or rather, Hollywood didn’t view him as this. So he got this movie basically based on the success and acclaim of The Elephant Man, with the exerpimental nature of Eraserhead probably playing some kind of small role.

But watching this movie, I had no idea what was happening. And not in that good David Lynchian way. But in just a generically confusing way.

The movie is a mess, but a pretty interesting mess, to be fair. It has some weird, creepy body horror stuff. It’s got some wonderful set design and some great special effects for the time. But it’s all in service of an incomprehensible story.

I actually read the Frank Herbert novel a long time ago, and I don’t remember much about it. I remember I read it at a time in which I thought I really loved science fiction, and it was books like this (and Foundation) that really taught me that I don’t, or at least not hard science fiction like this. Or sci-fi/fantasy. Whatever you’d call this.

I really think all that’s wrong here is the script. This has moments of impressive direction. It has a good cast with Kyle MacLachlen, Max von Sydow, Virginia Madsen, Brad Dourif, Jurgen Prochnow, Dean Stockwell, Jose Ferrer, and Patrick Stewart. It’s really just the writing.

Rating: 4/10