Dune (a movie review post)

 

Generally speaking, I'm going to say that it's a good thing when you finish a movie and continue to ruminate over it. Usually, that means that the movie has given you something to think about or that it was so entertaining that you can't get it out of your head. But, sometimes, it's the opposite. Sometimes the things that bothered you about a movie won't leave you alone and, if it's really bad, start bringing up other things you didn't like about the movie. As you think about it and think about it and, yes, think about it, it gets worse and worse. A movie that you enjoyed, or mostly enjoyed, watching becomes something you actively dislike.
Yes, sometimes, it's Dune.

I had hopes for Dune. I won't call them "high hopes," because I was also wary, despite the cast. Back in 2000 SyFy did a limited Dune series, and it was amazing. They captured the story in its full glory, and it is something I have gone back and watched many times. So my thought process when they announced the new movie went something like this: "huh wow I don't see how they can make something better than the limited series. Surely, though, they wouldn't be making a new movie if they didn't think it was going to be better than the limited series. I mean, they have to be aware of that, right? So they wouldn't do it if it wasn't going to be better? Right?" So I was looking forward to the movie. Surely, they had to be bringing something new to the table...

My wife tells me that I have faulty logic when it comes to this because I forget the part about money. The money part makes it not that important whether or not it will be better; it only needs to be something that people will go see. And there is the part where most people are unaware of the limited series. And wouldn't care about it if they knew. It was before the TV exploded into what it is now. It was pre-GoT.

Needless to say, I have issues with this new iteration of Dune. My wife said that my reaction is very "I'm not angry with you, just disappointed." Which is pretty true. heh

So where are the issues?

The first one that broke me out of the movie, always a bad thing, is the scene where Paul is tested. Put your hand in the box; receive ultimate pain; if you pull your hand from the box, we're gonna kill you. Paul gets through this torture scenario with the use of what becomes his mantra throughout the book (and, appropriately, in the SyFy series): Fear is the mind-killer. It's a whole thing and so fucking famous. It's probably the best known thing about Dune. In the movie? Nah... He doesn't say it. Instead, his mother, who is waiting in the hallway, is the one muttering it. WTF? Which is what I thought while I was watching it. What the actual fuck? We were watching on HBO since we have it, and I actually had to stop the movie. That is a bad, bad sign.

Then there is the absence of the big party. That's the next place that really threw me. This is important for two reasons: The princess is not introduced at all, and the party is where Paul meets her in the book (and, guess where, in the SyFy series). She is not an unimportant side character, so this is kind of egregious. Also, it is through the party that the Sardaukar infiltrate the estate. Palace. Whatever you call it. Sure, Yueh betrays them, but the Sardaukar are already there.

Speaking of Yueh, he's there just enough so that you know who he is when he betrays Leto, but his character is just... wrong. And there's no emotional investment in the fact that Yueh betrays them, because you don't know him at all. And he still gets more screen time than, say, Duncan or Gurney. I'm not sure why Villeneuve didn't just cut out everyone other than Paul and Jessica. He doesn't seem to think any of the other characters are important enough to bother with.

To top it off, the movie is slow as fuck. I like slow movies. I'm not one of those people who needs constant action or anything close to it. I think Arrival is brilliant. Slow and brilliant. But this movie is so slow that my wife got bored while we were watching it and declared at one, "How much longer does this thing have!" You know a movie is good when my wife cries during it, but not when she is crying (not really) from boredom. And she called it "this thing," never a good sign. Not to mention that she has an excellent time sense, unlike me, and I told the family before we started it that it was 2.5 hours long. For her to have lost track of the timing of it because she was just that bored is significant.

I could go on, but, clearly, this is enough to let you know where I am on this movie. All it accomplished was making me want to go re-watch the limited series again... oh, but you can't! Because Warner Bros. squashed it, and it's not available for streaming anywhere. Fuck you, Warner Bros.! That's just rude. Oh, you can stream Children of Dune, sequel series, on Amazon, but you can't stream the actual series. Again, fuck you, Warner Bros.

Do I have anything good to say about the movie? I don't know. The cast is pretty decent. Sort of. Chalamet is adequate. He doesn't seem like he's going to be able to pull off Paul as the story progresses. Maybe I'm wrong about that. I guess we'll find out in two fucking years when the next one comes out. Why am I mad about that kind of delay in a movie I have clearly disenjoyed? Because the movie could have been ready to come out almost immediately. Dune was slated for a 2020 release, but was delayed because of the pandemic and because Villeneuve didn't want it released on streaming. They could have been working on the sequel... By the way, this movie was not advertised in any way as a "part one;" it was advertised as Dune, the whole thing. Which, yeah, I thought was crazy but, also, part of why I thought they were doing it as a movie. Breaking the book into several movies should have resulted in a better product. A much better product. Not this lackluster piece of... well, it's not quite shit. I mean, it's not Lynch's version, after all. Anyway, they could have had the sequel almost ready to go by now but, I guess, Warner Bros. wasn't confident enough to greenlight the sequel until the release of this one.

I was talking about the cast...

So far, I think Alec Newman was a better Paul.
I like Rebecca Ferguson, but I don't know if I like her better than Saskia Reeves.
I like Oscar Isaac, but William Hurt was much much better as Leto. It might be because his role was more significant.
Jason Mamoa is great as Duncan Idaho. He's very much Mamoa, but he's great at it.
I like Julie Cox better as the Princess because... oh, yeah, because there is no Princess in this version.
And, honestly, there is not enough of the other great actors cast in this to tell if they are any good.
The whole thing is... just... disappointing.
And, yeah, maybe I am a bit angry, too.

The Incredible Hulk (a movie review post)

 

Marvel Movie #2

I have long been a Hulk supporter. That started with Ang Lee's Hulk, which I felt was unfairly maligned. [I intend to re-watch that one, too, now, because I realized when watching the MCU Hulk that I had rolled bits and pieces of that one into this one.] One reason is that a lot of the shade being thrown at both movies had to do with the animation. Generally speaking, people making movies are making them as technically proficiently as they can, and I am willing to overlook poor tech, especially when you're dealing with companies on the cutting edge. I mean, have you seen movies made before Star Wars? And no one then was complaining about things looking fake or not.

That said, there is a problem with the animation in The Incredible Hulk that has nothing to do with capability; it has to do with choice and design. Those things are fair game for slammingy. So here's the problem with Incredible: Every time Hulk was onscreen for any kind of "closeup" I felt like I was watching Lego Hulk. Of course, Lego Hulk is based on this Hulk, but Lego is intentionally cartoony, and this movie was trying to not, which I will get more into in a moment. Effectively, whoever was doing the animation for Hulk's face went with a poor design that made him look like a cartoon dog when they showed his expressions, and it just does not work.

It especially doesn't work with Edward Norton. Oh, god, he is so pretentious. No, I am not a Norton fan. As I said in my Iron Man review, casting is something that Marvel has proven to be very adept at, but this movie was a colossal fumble. I really have never been able to figure out what they were thinking with this whole deal because, to get Norton, they had to give him script control, and he re-wrote the initial script. What I will say here is that Incredible does not feel like a Marvel movie. At all. That was the thing that struck me most, the feel of the movie. Now, I don't know what the original script was like and whether it had the correct feel or not, but, in the end, that doesn't matter, because it was the Norton script that they used. And Norton who blocked the end-credits scene and made it into a pre-credits scene, also very un-Marvel-like.

The result of all of that is that Incredible feels like an ode to King Kong rather than a Marvel movie. There are two problems with that:
1. Peter Jackson had just made his horrible adaptation of Kong. Maybe Norton thought this would be better? I don't know. It was unnecessary, though, to do this so close on the heels of Jackson's.
2. Hulk is a Jekyll and Hyde story, not a King Kong story so, well, wrong movie Norton. Come on, man, you really could have dealt with the horror of turning into a monster you don't want to be -- and the opening of the movie looked in that direction with the whole "days since last incident" thing -- rather than the romantic Kong angle. The cave scene is so painful to watch.

Of course, all of this was being done vaguely in conjunction with Universal, so maybe they are the reason for all of the King Kong stuff? That, I do not know.

All of that, and I never buy Norton as being tortured by his predicament. Maybe frantic, but not tortured.

Speaking of Peter Jackson, though he has nothing to do with this, I like Liv Tyler. I do. She was great as Arwen. But she is not good as Betty Ross. She's too soft spoken. I think Jennifer Connelly was much better as Betty. Maybe I'll change my mind when I watch Lee's Hulk, but I don't think so. I'm going to go out on a limb, here, and say that Eric Bana was better as banner, too.
Of course, Ruffalo has turned out to be the correct choice, because Ruffalo has that tortured look that makes Hulk work.

And I'm not even going to start on the Abomination. Tim Roth was fine, but, again, whoever made the animation decision made the Abomination an abomination. His cameo in Shang-chi is so awesome, especially in comparison to this monstrosity. Pun clearly intended.

William Hurt is the best part of this movie. Or, maybe, the cameo by Lou Ferrigno. And the one by Martin Star. None of the things that should have been the best parts are the best parts. They are the worst.

Oh, and what's the deal with Stark going to Ross at the end of the movie? I don't think that is ever dealt with. Maybe I'm wrong or maybe Marvel was hoping we'd forget, which we probably did, considering I had forgotten all about that until I re-watched it.

Here's the final word:
The Incredible Hulk is the lowest grossing of the Marvel movies, and there is a reason for that. It's not a movie I will ever go back and watch again "just for fun."