Dune

Denis Villeneuve’s windswept epic is engrossing enough to maintain an audience with an intermission and a running time twice its length.

When the anticipation is feverish, it sets up movies to disappoint and fail. This long-awaited movie smashes those expectations.

Dune is a triumph of mediocrity. What it does, it does well enough, but was it worth doing? It's a cookie-cutter movie, a restatement of every trope that now impoverishes cinema.

Nowhere near as enjoyable as Villeneuve's inspired Blade Runner 2049, Dune is an achievement for sure, but watching it is rather like having huge marble monoliths dropped on you for two and a half hours.

I saw it Tuesday night, and I want to already see it again this weekend. To watch a two-and-a-half-hour movie like that, says something...

I really loved Dune. The action set pieces were phenomenal, but the focus was almost always on the characters.

Villeneuve’s “Dune” is the cinematic equivalent of a meditation garden: gorgeous to watch with its characters’ polished skin, smooth stonelike spaceships, sand enveloped landscapes, sunlight

It would be enough of a cinematic experience with just the visuals, but the technical elements within the sound are award-worthy.

Few movies showcase this scale, and once again, Villeneuve proves himself one of the best filmmakers alive. However, some early pacing issues and the two-part nature make Dune feel somewhat incomplete.

Dune’s first half lived up to the hype as a mix of political intrigue, sci-fi storytelling and a large selection of really interesting characters, all with great visuals and sound design to match.