Dune

2.00
    Dune
    1984

    Synopsis

    In the year 10,191, the most precious substance in the universe is the spice Melange. The spice extends life. The spice expands consciousness. The spice is vital to space travel. The spice exists on only one planet in the entire universe, the vast desert planet Arrakis, also known as Dune. Its native inhabitants, the Fremen, have long held a prophecy that a man would come, a messiah who would lead them to true freedom.

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    Cast

    • Kyle MacLachlanPaul Atreides
    • Francesca AnnisLady Jessica
    • Patrick StewartGurney Halleck
    • Linda HuntShadout Mapes
    • José FerrerPadisha Emperor Shaddam IV
    • Leonardo CiminoThe Baron's Doctor
    • Freddie JonesThufir Hawat
    • Brad DourifPiter De Vries
    • Richard JordanDuncan Idaho
    • Virginia MadsenPrincess Irulan

    Recommendations

    • 75

      The Atlantic

      While it's hardly a cohesive experience, individual scenes are brought to life with striking power.
    • 70

      The Hollywood Reporter

      For all its cumbersome scope (realized on a shimmeringly large scale by Lawrence of Arabia cinematographer Freddie Francis), the film remains an intensely personal epic, Lynch's uncommon emphasis on characters rather than effects lending his exposition a rather remarkable lucidity.
    • 70

      Time Out

      Lynch's third feature may have been a commercial disaster, but it gets under your skin and is marked by unforgettable images and an extraordinary soundtrack.
    • 60

      Empire

      A most fascinating disaster of genre making.
    • 60

      Variety

      Dune is a huge, hollow, imaginative and cold sci-fi epic. Visually unique and teeming with incident, David Lynch's film holds the interest due to its abundant surface attractions but won't, of its own accord, create the sort of fanaticism which has made Frank Herbert's 1965 novel one of the all-time favorites in its genre.
    • 50

      TV Guide Magazine

      DUNE is visually delightful but choppy, confusing, and overloaded with exposition. Moreover, most of the thematic material that made the novel work--subtexts involving incestuous desire, capitalism vs. environmentalism, and Middle East politics--is simply missing.
    • 40

      Washington Post

      How maddening Dune is! As you would expect from visionary director David Lynch, it is a movie of often staggering visual power, the most ambitious science fiction film since "2001"; it's also stupefyingly dull and disorderly. Dune doesn't get going till fully two hours have elapsed, so only the most patient will wait for the images to build to their crescendo. Lax in its storytelling, Dune gives us sublimity unmoored.
    • 40

      Chicago Reader

      The problem is that the imagery—as Sadean as Pasolini's Salo—isn't rooted in any story impulse, and so its power dissipates quickly. The real venue for this film is either a grind house or the Whitney Museum.

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