At long last we finally have Denis Villeneuve’s dream project of DUNE, or at least half of it. It’s unwieldily and hard to penetrate like Frank Herbert’s novel, but it’s a tactile, rich and essential big screen experience as well. Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) travels with his family’s noble house to planet Arrakis to take over the Imperium’s precious spice industry, all the while suspecting a trap has been laid by their mortal enemies the Harkonnens. Soon Paul finds himself wandering the inhospitable desert avoiding colossal sand worms and seeking an alliance with the nomadic Fremen, for whom he may be their prophesied messiah. This is a formidable ensemble cast, standouts being Rebecca Ferguson as a fragile Lady Jessica, Josh Brolin as a growly Gurney Halleck and Javier Bardem as a dignified Stilgar, and with all three characters’ most interesting moments still to come in Part 2, it’s an exciting prospect indeed. Allow the magnitude and uniqueness of this sci-fi epic story draw you in then let the visuals transfix and the soundscape envelop you. SSP