An adaptation too ambitious for its own good. It is overloaded, going through too many characters and plot turns without allowing the viewer to make any sort of emotional investment. It ditches the novel's political, religious, and social themes in favor of a visceral experience. The problem with that is that the costumes, sets, makeup, and special effects are tacky, and the acting is horrible. I wasn't expecting a good movie, but as a fan of the novel I was at least expecting a good time. Nope.

Take Lynch's distinct a/v qualities, sets that would be right at home in a Burton/Gilliam-esque world, and a long fucking book that I know nothing about, throw 'em in a blender and forget to put the lid back on. A mess, but an interesting one.

Over-ambitious yet containing some interesting elements, Dune ultimately falls short in execution after a promising exposition. Sadly, a failure both as a mainstream science-fiction film and as a David Lynch film.

I've read Dune just like everybody else and the problem with this is that it's forced to condense so much source material in just 2 hours. During the whole thing I thought I was watching a very long trailer of an upcoming movie.

As an adaptation of the book it fails, standing on it's own Dune is a muddled sci-fi adventure movie, a glorious failure would be a good description. The production design is excellent throughout with amazing sets and costume design. Being a David Lynch movie it's deliberately wierd in places which helps make the movie feel unique. The worst thing a movie can be is boring and Dune is most definitely not boring, veering from genuinely cool scenes to sublimely terrible.

The effects are dated but it's hard to dislike even when it strays from Herbert's book. It does manage to capture the existential weirdness of the Dune world and adds in Lynchian touches like psycho-sexual scenes of Sting parading around in a codpiece and Baron Harkonnen looking like a decrepit fat pervert. The problem wasn't Lynch it was that a novel like Dune is impossible to cram into a single movie. What this loses in coherency it makes up for in ambition and bizarre creativity.

Underrated epic that effectively compresses the sprawling book. Lynch's vision of Arrakis is unique and memorable.

Such a harsh rating is deserved for such an excellent director. Even without the adaptation issues, this "film" is utter trash. The narrative is garbled, the acting is laughable and the biggest problem: the story just doesn't flow as it should. Perhaps I was expecting too much from Lynch and the material (Dune is an excellent novel, btw).

It's overlong, it's disjointed, it's geared towards the fans of the novel to a fault - yet at the same time bizarrely altering certain elements - yet despite its long list of flaws, I just can't get enough of it. It's that decidedly Lynchian undertone, it's strange and slightly surreal, and it really doesn't have an equal in the Science Fiction genre. It's perhaps that unique spark of creativity underlying the entire film that gives it its charm, and that's good enough for me.