upstill@ucbvax.ARPA (Steve Upstill) (12/15/84)
Here it is the next day, and there's only one review of Dune been posted so far? Hard to believe. mini-review: see it. If you've read the book, see it twice. You who were so concerned about Dino's involvement may rest easy: it bears virtually no stamp of his involvement except an enormous (and well-spent) budget. Good news: The look. This is probably the most gorgeously fantastic looking movie I have ever seen. David Lynch started as a painter, and it shows. The depth of originality in this movie is amazing. Dramatically, all performances are solid, with pudding-face Kyle MacLaughlin (sp?) coming off surprisingly well. Sting has about four scenes and eight lines. This is definitely a daring movie in what it expects from the audience. You actually have to PAY ATTENTION to understand what's going on. Bad news: First, there was a real effort to get everything from the book into the movie. As a result, it is somewhat compressed dramatically, and some things aren't as developed as they could have been. Lovers of the book will have no trouble filling in the blanks. But the FEELING is like a 2-hour plus recapitulation -- it's that rushed. The other negative is the sound track, but it seems that Lynch realized how flat it is and turned it down about 20dB for release; when the credits were rolling I honestly thought that the theater had lost a channel and the music was only coming across via crosstalk. In sum: much, much better than I expected (but I expected so little...). I'll definitely go back at least once more. Steve Upstill
serge@rna.UUCP (12/18/84)
I will agree that the costumes and sets of DUNE were excellent but the matte work was awful. In just about every scene with an optical effect you could see the various elements jiggling with respect to one another. The even was a shot or two where the matte was dirty. It really ruined an other wize visually beautiful film.