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DUNE – Review by Lonita Cook

Lonita Cook , , , , , , ,
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Ooh Lord, what they got going on over on that desert planet this time?

Denis Villeneuve makes his version of Dune. Now, is it a remake of the classic David Lynch film or is it a new interpretation and adaptation of the Frank Herbert book?

The year is 10,191 and the drug-like spice is mined on the planet Arrakis. The Emperor has ordered House Harkonnen to surrender the planet to enemy House Atreides.

Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) accepts the Emperor’s decree to takeover spice mining and he, his concubine, Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) and son, Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) take residence among the blistering sun and the bone-dry sand.

But there’s something about that Paul. Though he’s this scrawny runt, he may just have a beloved prophecy on his tiny behind. Is he The One?

Not only is his father a Duke (and near master political strategist), but his mother is a Bene Gesserit Sister, a powerful line of sorceresses who can choose the birth of their offspring. And in the interest of bearing the Kwisatz Haderach—this “The One”– they’ve all been ordered to bear only daughters.

Jessica defies her sisterhood and bears the Duke a son.

Ah, amor. And messiahs.

The 2021 “Dune” walks a tight rope. It has to live up to, modernize and surpass the 1984 iteration while being something all its own. So, is it a remake of David Lynch’s or a straight adaptation from the book? Continue reading.

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Lonita Cook

A Kansas City-based film critic, Lonita is a member of the Critics Choice Association (CCA), a voting member of the Black Reel Awards as well as board member at Kansas City Film Critics Circle. She contributes to KCTV5 (CBS), KS Women’s Lifestyle Magazine and blackbeebuzz.com. She also cohosts flix + mix, an internet-based show festivising food, film and friendship. As a filmmaker and artist supporter she is the East Central KS Field Rep for Kansas Department of Commerce Creative Arts Industries Commission, Board Chair of the Johnson County Arts and Heritage Museum Foundation and she’s volunteered at festivals around the world, including 13 years at Sundance Film Festival. It is one of her great joys to be there when artist dreams come true! After recent completion of the Professional Producer’s Program out of the Theater, Film + Television School at UCLA, Lonita develops a deeper appreciation of creative producing and storytelling which she uses to inform her approach to criticism.