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Reviews
Dune (2021)
Finally both a coherent and high budget Dune adaptation
I must say I had a lot of doubts about this movie. Dune is an amazing book, but it has its own terminology which would lead to some heavy- handed exposition in a movie. This was handled surprisingly well in the movie.
I also had doubts over the casting as I hadn't seen Timothée Chalamet or Zendaya before. However, I must say Chalamet is absolutely amazing as Paul. Chani only shows up towards the end of the movie, but so far so good. Stellan Skarsgard was great as always and I can't wait to see more of Javier Bardem. I just wish there were more scenes with Leto and Jessica alone as I wasn't entirely convinced of the chemistry between them.
As far as the visuals go I love the sets and costumes with the exception of Thufir Hawat who for some reason is LARPing as a Soviet era commissar. The music is a bit droning at times, but I think it suits the visuals nicely. There was throat singing for some reason, but I liked it.
Now on to the negative. I'm afraid I'm just not a fan of Villeneuve's style. Will someone please teach this man how to use spotlights? Seriously- what is the point of paying amazing actors millions of dollars only to have their faces concealed in shadow for half the movie? This is not a rhetorical question, I would genuinely like to now. Why not just get less famous actors if their faces are going to be in shadow anyway? Movies have been too dark for the last 10- 15 years. And no, I don't mean thematically dark I mean literally too dark to watch even at night. If you want to make a thematically dark movie use your actors, costumes, sets and music to do that. Don't just decrease the brightness and think you're being artsy.
And what is this trend with movies being almost black and white? Why suck all the colour out? What's the point of advancing camera, projector and screen technology if movies these days look worse then they did in the '90s? Sorry, but I'm just not convinced of the blistering heat of the desert when everything is just shades of grey. A Dune movie needs way more red. What is curious is Paul's dreams/ visions have the right colour pallet with rich red, but the bulk of the movie doesn't and it just looks like it's taking place on a cool, cloudy day in Egypt and not on a hot, alien planet. I suppose you must be thinking "Well, just increase the color and brightness on your screen" and sure I can always do that and it does help to an extent. But when a movie is shot badly no amount of TV settings can fix it.
Also minus points for shying away from the word "jihad" and Jessica and not asking the reverend mother to protect her husband. Somehow it's always okay to mock and accuse christianity, but never islam.
On the whole I found the movie enjoyable and I'm glad to finally see a coherent Dune adaption which is also high budget and has decent visual effects. I do hope they make the sequel if only to finish the first book. I also hope Villeneuve learns to light his movies better and not have scenes with people just walking for minutes on end like in Blade Runner. But I'm not holding out my breath for this one.
Foundation: The Mathematician's Ghost (2021)
Wasted potential
They seriously wasted Jared Harris and all the other actors just to do a complete swap of the characters and a ~40 year time jump after only two episodes. Harris' character was killed off in a stupid way with no motive and Gaal got spaced and we are never shown what happens to her. Why should I care for any of the new characters when I don't know any of them?