David Lynch’s terrible 1984 ‘Dune’ is still the stuff of migraines
The reviews are in!
“Dune” is “diabolically bad,” laments The Post. “This pretentious exercise in pointless insanity is so bad it’s in a class by itself.”
Adds the Chicago Sun-Times: It’s “a real mess, an incomprehensible, ugly, unstructured, pointless excursion into the murkier realms of one of the most confusing screenplays of all time.”
Not quite the fantastic buzz you’ve been hearing about the new screen epic “Dune,” in theaters and on HBO Max Friday, starring Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson and Oscar Isaac? That’s because these are just a few of the yummy pans of David Lynch’s notorious 1984 flop, also called “Dune.”
And these cranky critics (Roger Ebert for the Sun-Times and Rex Reed for The Post) were spot-on. Taking in “Dune” today is like watching Mel Brooks’ “Spaceballs”— only it’s longer and the joke’s on us.
But the project didn’t begin in Hollywood hell.
The big budget science-fiction film was based on the mega-popular 1965 Frank Herbert novel, the forefather of “Star Wars,” and the cast included relevant celebs such as Sting, Virginia Madsen and Kyle MacLachlan. The producer was the legendary Dino De Laurentiis and his director was a young Hollywood hotshot who was about to create the seminal TV series “Twin Peaks.” A coup!
Yet “coup!” fast turned to “booo!” And, as Lynch recently admitted in a rare interview on his YouTube channel, “I’m proud of everything — except ‘Dune.’ ”
The doomed project even got off the ground bizarrely. De Laurentiis picked the director for the picture because he had liked “The Elephant Man,” his drama about a deformed Brit that’s about as far away from “Dune” as Anchorage is from Perth.
The production in Mexico City took 3 ½ years and went way over budget, leading to college-classroom special effects (when the rotund baddie Baron Harkonnen flies around on a wire, you’ll gasp for air). Not good for a movie that’s ALL special effects. Lynch favored a three-hour movie but the studio demanded two, so a bunch of important expository scenes were cut and an airy Madsen opens the film with confusing narration that makes you want to bury your head in all that sand.
“It was a nightmare,” Lynch said years later in a TV interview. He hated it so much that when the studio released an extended edition that aired on TV, Lynch successfully demanded his name be removed and changed to “Alan Smithee.”
And, although the director is protected by film buffs because of the esteem he’s accumulated from later helming “Mulholland Drive” and “Blue Velvet,” a lot of “Dune” is plainly his fault. The ugly costumes, the Germanic sets and the whistle-tone acting combine into a garish ’80s relic that the whole world is ashamed of.
“Dune” flopped at the box office, making $30.9 million on a $40 million budget.
And now, a movie with the same title and identical plot has Oscar buzz and euphoric reviews (I gave it four stars).
Canadian director Denis Villeneuve claims to have purposely avoided Lynch’s movie to let his own vision shine through. Suuuuuure.
Without even trying, he gets everything right that Lynch got wrong. The look is elegant and ancient instead of “‘The Lost Boys go to the Desert.” Rather than cramming an elephant through a nailhole, Villeneuve lets Herbert’s material breathe over a planned two parts enabling clear storytelling and character development. We root for leading man Chalamet’s Paul Atreides — we don’t wonder “Wait? Why isn’t Sting the lead?” And the effects are the opposite of laughable — they’re the best you’ve seen since “Avatar” 12 years ago.
However, there is one possible similarity between the two Dunes. During a precarious time for the international box office, there is a fair chance it won’t make all of its money back. Part 2 has not yet been green lit by Warner Bros. and there is no guarantee it will be made at all.
If Part 1 flops, and Villeneuve’s vision remains forever half-finished, it will be official: “Dune” is cursed.
