Atruly stunning achievement

Dune (M, 155 mins) Directed by Denis Villeneuve Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett ★★★★ 1⁄

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Frank Herbert’s has been defying film-makers to come and have a go, pretty much since it dropped off the presses in serial form in 1965.

is a sprawling and wildly ambitious story. It takes place across galaxies, features a cast with some decidedly alien abilities, and one of its most important plot lines revolves around the existence of 500-metre-long sandwormswho – no, really – spend their days defecating a substance that is a hallucinogen of such strength that it can cause its users to bend time and space with their minds, so that intergalactic travel becomes possible.

Herbert may have set his novel 8000 years in the future, but is still utterly and wonderfully a product of the 1960s.

Getting all – or any – of this up on the screen has been tried a few times. David Lynch released a version in 1984, which, although it will always be a late-night cult favourite, is still a lumpen and ungainlymess. The special effects of 1984 reallyweren’t up to Herbert’s imagination – and casting the famously inexpressive KyleMacLachlan as the hero Paul Atreides was maybe amisstep.

Although, by the time a young Sting showed up as an evil Baron’s murderous nephew, wearing nothing but a pout and his battle panties, you’d have been too busy laughing to rememberwho MacLachlan was even supposed to be – and why it should matter.

The 2000 Sci-Fi Channelminiseries is apparentlyworth a look.

Me, I just wish that Alejandro Jodorowsky had got his vision off the ground in 1974. Butwith Salvador Dali, OrsonWelles and Mick Jagger in the cast, Pink Floyd providing the soundtrack and a projected nine-hour running time, it was never really going to happen. The documentary

on the doomed attempt, is still probably my favourite ‘‘making of’’ ever.

is the story of two dynasties battling for the supply of the aforementioned worm poo – known as Melange, or ‘‘spice’’ – and control of the only planet on which it exists.

The Atreideses are the good guys here, led by the apparently decent and noble Leto. Paul is his son and heir. Hismum is Lady Jessica, who is also amember of an ancient sisterhood, whose own aims and plans will slowly come into focus.

Ranged against the decent and mother-loving Atreideses are the – boo, hiss – Harkonnens, led by a repugnant Baron and his army of sycophants and mercenaries, all of whom look as though they’d push their own granny down the stairs if you promised them an icecream.

Picking a side in isn’t hard. CompressingHerbert’s sprawling storytelling into anything watchable and propulsive is. But director Denis Villeneuve has succeeded. Working from a script co-written with veterans Jon Spaihts and Eric Roth, Villeneuve’s vision of simply gets everything right. The look of the film is exactlywhat a fan might have hoped for.

The effects – digital and incamera – are convincing and appropriately astonishing. And Villeneuve has set the story in motion at exactly the right pace. There is grandeur and pomp here, and a sense ofmighty political foes manoeuvring their way around each other, but is never anything less than nimble at getting across the screen.

Villenueve has mistaken humourlessness for seriousness in the past. His looked and sounded wonderful, but the storytelling was leaden. Here, with a dream cast and a startlingly well-streamlined script, flies.

Timothee Chalamet – basically revisiting his performance in

– is perfect as Paul Atreides, and Oscar Isaac and Rebecca Ferguson are both fine as his parents. On the opposition benches, Stellan Skarsgard is winningly grotesque as the Baron, and Dave Bautista is appropriately thuggish as a right-hand and fixer.

The secret weapons here are Josh Brolin and Jason Momoa as the career soldiers tasked with defending the family and mentoring Paul. It’s as though Villeneuve has finally realised that having a couple of likeable and gruffly funny characters among all the bloodshed and pontificating might actually be something that propels the storytelling and keeps us invested in what is happening on screen.

Once the actionmoves into the desert, where the worms and their spice lurk, Javier Bardem and Zendaya – representing the Indigenous ‘‘Fremen’’ – are on hand to lead Chalamet and Ferguson, at least, into what promises to be a truly epic second instalment.

Villeneuve does pretty much everything you could hope for here. This undercuts and interrogates Herbert’s ‘‘white saviour’’ narrative early and often, but in a way that leaves other themes intact. The role the mysterious sisterhoodwill play in the conflicts to come is not clear, butwe have not seen the last of them. The coming alliance between the Atreides and the Fremen is barely hinted at here, but it is still thoroughly seeded and ready to bloom.

It won’t be until 2023 and the release of the second film that we can really appreciate just how well Part One has succeeded. But I’ve got a feeling this will be remembered and appreciated for decades.

Villeneuve hasmade into something accessible and human, while retaining and celebrating the epic scale of the source. It is a stunning achievement. Go and see it on the biggest screen in town.