#24: MONKEY MAN

Starring, written, produced and directed by Dev Patel, who also wrote and sung the theme tune. Screenplay also by Paul Angunawela and John Collee. Also starring Sharlto Copley, Pitobash, Sobhita Dhulipala, Sikandar Kher, Vipin Sharma, Ashwini Kalsekar, Adithi Kalkunte and Makarand Deshpande. Running time 121 minutes. 

I blame Liam Nelson for creating a sub-genre of 'Unlikely Action Hero', well him and Keanu Reeves' John Wick franchise. Monkey Man sees scrawny 'unlikely action hero' Dev Patel as 'the Kid', a mysterious young man on a revenge quest to hunt-down a group of men who killed his mum. To become the supreme man of action he needs to be to kill his enemy he dons a monkey mask and allows himself to be beaten to a pulp mercilessly in a weekly fighting bout to hone his fighting skills, whilst working as a busboy in a swanky bar to hone up on his dishwashing abilities. Naturally our plucky hero has to reach rock bottom before he can fight his way to the top and when the ubiquitous training montage finally turns up you can't but sigh in relief, although then you have to sit through what happened to his mother. Still, it's all grist for the mill for our ripped and honed hero has he sets out to Kill his Bill, so to speak, or Bills in this case.

Filmed in EXTREME CLOSE UP for nearly all of its run time and featuring an incredible number of sweaty lank haired men, this is the only film I've ever seen where you get to recognise the characters not by their faces but by their nose hairs.

Hats off to Dev Patel who did everything on this film short of picking up all the actors and driving them to the set each morning. It's obvious he had a singular vision and decided to run with it. He creates a deeply brutal and savage world filled with corrupt ugly women hating men and women hating women who exploit all in their quest for greed and power. 

It's hot, sweaty, nasty, too long and really not my cup of tea anymore, I prefer my revenge thrillers to be a little less bleak if I'm honest.

Can't fault Patel's passion or skill, though. 

7/10

#23: MARY POPPINS

Starring Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke, David Tomlinson, Glynis Johns, Hermione Baddeley, Kate Dotrice, Mathew Garber, Elsa Lanchester, Arthur Treather, Reginald Owen and Ed Wynn. Based on the book Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers. Screenplay by Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi. Directed by Robert Stevenson. Running time 139 minutes.

Originally released in 1964, Mary Poppins would go on to earn $44 million dollars at the US box office and become the highest grossing film of 1964. It was nominated for 13 Academy Awards, the most ever received for a Walt Disney Studios film, and ultimately win five for Best Actress, Best Film Editing, Best Original Musical Score, Best Visual Effects and Best Original Song for 'Chim Chim Cher-ee'. It was the acting debut of Julie Andrews and was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being 'culturally historically or aesthetically significant'.

Deservedly so.

The story, in case you need reminding, see Poppins arrive on the doorstep of the Banks family supposedly as the new nanny and then through the use of black magic, witchcraft and devil worship she takes over the household, binding the two innocent children of the house, Jane and Michael, to her demonic will and manipulating the rest of the family with the aid of her acolyte and minion, Bert - a shape-changing warlock. Much hilarity ensues as a old man is killed to further the patriarch of the family's career and the wife is made to sing and dance to Poppin's evil tune. And that's, dear reader, is the plot. 

Watching this 60 years later, and on the big screen (perhaps for the first ever time) I was struck at a number of things. First, this is a totally studio bound movie with no location or second unit shots on offer which means the sets and lighting are all artificial, added to that the fact that all of the backgrounds are glorious painted backdrops and almost every shot is enhanced by beautiful matte shots, you realise that if this was made today in the same way everything would be CGI. 
The difference between both approaches though is that this film has a warm and charm that CGI can never hope to replicate. The special effects used here are a marvel and harken to a time when it was the work and creation of true artists.

Everything about this film is charming and delightful, it's a hard film, nay an impossible film to hate and you realise that somehow you know all the songs. Although, that said, it's also perhaps the only fly in the ointment, I'd sort of forgotten this is a musical and it's a musical in the true sense of the word, you're never more than a minute away from a song and although initially I found it jarring and irritating, I was soon swept up and away by it all. The songs are all so goddam likeable! Added to that the fantastic animated sequence when Mary, the kids and Bert jump into a pavement chalk drawing to dance with foxes, horses. The magic in this film is never explained, no origin story is provided and nothing in the way of explanation and it's so much better as a result. 

A perennial Bank Holiday movie since I can remember, to see it up on the big screen in glorious technicolour was a true Easter Treat. Sadly only myself and one other patron turned up for it this morning, which seemed a bit sad really. It's a wholesome and deeply joyful experience and one that I truly believe would captivate today's children if only their parents were willing to take a punt on a 60 year old movie. 

Deeply satisfying and rewarding. 

9/10 

#22: GODZILLA KISS KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE

Starring Godzilla, King Kong, Mothra, Rebecca Hall, Dan Stevens and some utterly useless other humans not worth mentioning. From a story by Terry Rosslo, Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett and a screenplay by Terry Rossio, Simon Barrett and Jeremy Slater. Directed by Adam Wingard. Budget $135 million dollars. Running time 115 minutes. 

Suffering from a bad tooth, King Kong pops upstairs to Earth from the Hollow Earth for a spot of instant animal dentistry thanks to Dan Steven's stupidly sexy  expert veterinarian, Trapper, while Godzilla lays waste to Rome whilst destroying a rampaging monster, then goes to sleep in the Colosseum like a giant cat. With tooth fixed KK pisses off back downstairs and stumbles across an ancient tribe of giant gorillas lead by a gigantic red ape called Skar King who's hell-bent on conquering the Hollow Earth and Earth too with the aid of a superdooper gigantic ice breathing dinosaur beastie called Shimo. Knowing he can't defeat them, KK goes upstairs again to recruit the Big G for a showdown but gets his arm broken and has to have it fixed with a massive metal gauntlet by the super-sexy vet, Dan Stevens, Trapper. Luckily there's this silent tribe of humans called the WeeWee who are guardians of Mothra who are on hand to provide background details on the various wee beasties before it's time for an epic third act showdown that lays waste to Rio de Janeiro, all of Cairo, with whistle stop smack downs in Spain, Gibraltar and the Arctic.

Making 2021's Kong Vs Godzilla look positively restrained and slow-paced in comparison, GKKTNE is the pure epitome of mindless entertainment, for hold no illusion this is without doubt one of the most stupid films I've seen in a very long time. The plot is ludicrous, the acting laminable and characters less than one dimensional. Returning for this ridiculous nonsense is Rebecca Hall's Dr. Ilene, her adopted deaf and mute daughter Jia (Kayle Hottle) and the woeful Brian Tyree Henry as Bernie Hayes a stupid podcast conspiracy nut who almost single-handedly ruined the last film. They're joined by a strangely cast Dan Stevens as the super vet, Trapper. However all they have to do is stare off camera at things react and emote with enthusiasm while spouting reams of pointless and meaningless guff and gibberish. They matter not one jote to the film, as it's not them anyone's come to see. They've come to see Kong and Godzilla hit each other and other things and destroy shit, which they do to great effect. 

This starts out quite well in the Hollow Earth with KK but it takes a damn long time for this behemoth to finally get up to speed and get anywhere and when it finally does it doesn't really matter as none of it matters and the plot makes so little sense it's really not bothering with. In fact by the end of this I had quite forgotten how it had all started. 

In the good old days of Godzilla films, when it was men in suits hitting each other in scale models of Tokyo the action was great as there was a sense of scale, in this modern day outing and with the 'amazing' advances in CGI we don't need no rubber suited men fighting now we can have pixel perfect creations smacking each other silly and with camera moves that induce vertigo and motion sickness in equal measure. There's a few attempts to mimic the old fights of Godzilla from the 60s and 70s, but over all it's just pixels smacking other pixels while buildings of pixels fall over. 

Don't think about the sheer scale of colateral damage in terms of human lives and dollar signs, or cultural significance of the buildings destroyed, nothing matters, just entertainment.

Baxter remarked that early reviews talked about just enjoying this and not thinking about it, cos it's just fun! the message being, don't think, just consume more product! 

If you could sleep through all the pointless waffling guff and gibberish spouted by the human actors and just watch the action you'd have a far better experience however the needless and pointless dialogue spewed by the likes of Bernie Hayes and Trapper really slows down proceedings and weaken the film significantly. 

Plus there's not enough Godzilla. And the final boss fight is a little too perfunctory. 

Loud, long, stupidly dumb insultingly so, but bizarrely entertaining, but only when there's no actors talking and that includes the silent WeeWee tribe. 

Not as good as Kong Vs. Godzilla, or the Gareth Edward's Godzilla film, but still vastly better than Godzilla: King of Monsters, Godzilla Kiss Kong, the title makes no sense, which is fine, because nothing in this film makes sense, and yet it was still strangely entertaining, but only in the same way that watching a pigeon getting run over by a slow moving truck's wheel is funny.

Finally, my favourite film of last year was Godzilla Minus One, which managed to be deeply moving, powerful, and seriously entertaining. It was made for a tenth of the budget of this bloated nonsense and packed an emotional wallop that left us dazed and awed by its depth, ambition and drama. 

This was the literal polar opposite.

7/10

#21: LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL

Starring David Dastmalchian, Laura Gordon, Ian Bliss, Fayssai Bazzi, Ingrid Torelli, Rhys Auteri, Georgina Haig and Josh Quong Tart. Narrated by Michael Ironside. Written and directed by Colin Cairnes and Cameron Cairnes. Running time 93 minutes.

The film, narrated by Michael Ironside, is presented as a documentary and concerns the mysterious events leading up to filming of a Halloween special filmed for a 1970s late night chat show called: Night Owls. The film purportedly features unaired video tapes of the show. 

Starting out with a brief biography of the show's host, Jack Delroy (David Dastmalchian) where we learn of his rise to the almost top of the chat-show game, his association with a mysterious gentlemen's club called Bohemian Grove, and the tragic death through cancer of his beloved wife, Madeleine (Georgina Haig). We learn that the episode of the show we are about to watch was never broadcast for obvious reasons. 

Using the actual footage of the show we are introduced to Jack through his opening monologue, his nerdy sidekick, Gus McConnell (Rhys Auteri)'s and his three guests for the evening's show, Christou, a psychic (Fayssai Bazzi), Carmichael the Conjurer (Ian Bliss), a former magician turned skeptic, and Dr. June Ross-Mitchell and Lilly D'Abo (Laura Gordon and Ingrid Torelli) as a parapsychologist and author and her patient, the survivor of a mass suicide. It turns out that Ingrid is also possessed by no less than the devil himself.

We learn that the evening's episode is a last desperate 'Hail Mary' shot for Jack as the show faces the axe. What follows will almost certainly secure his future but perhaps not in the way he intended...

I think to give away more of the plot would be unfair, if you want to see this, going in knowning as little as possible should keep it far more entertaining.

This is an unsettling and at times scary little horror flick. David Dastmalchian, despite carrying the film, doesn't fully convince as a popular late-night chat-show host, he's a tad too creepy and his Jack Delroy comes across as a man hiding too many secrets, some of which are hinted at and we never truly uncover them. The other characters particularly Carmichael the Conjurer obviously modelled after the Amazing James Randi are entertaining and the sense of menace the film engenders is good. However the third act descent into full-out horror isn't as successful, let down by some shonky special effects, and a deeply implausible sequence featuring Carmichael and Gus.

That said, this is still good romp that doesn't outstay its welcome coming in at a brisk 93 minutes, which makes a refreshing change from the usual bloated hollywood fare projectile vomited over us. The film has some nice horror flourishes and gross-out moments but sadly suffers from an ending which doesn't quite land and the breaking of the 'found footage' aspect to shoehorn the conclusion is a weak coda to the film.

8/10

#20: GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE

Starring Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace, Kumail Nanjiani, Patton Oswalt, Alyn Lind, Celeste O'Connor, Logan Kim, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts and William Atherton. Written by Gil Kenan and Jason Reitman, directed by Gil Kenan. Budget $100 million. Running time 115 minutes. 

In a film that achieves the impressive double feat of feeling twice as long as it is while at the same time feeling devoid of content or any connectivity between the  cast numbering well over 10 characters and that's quite an impressive achievement.

Welcome to the fifth in the series, a film that sort of arrived luke warm on the heels of the last film, which this is a sequel to. It continues the 'hilarious' adventures of the Splenger family who've taken over the legacy of the Ghostbusters.

This latest instalment in the unneeded franchise features a rambling, vacuous plot that sees three generations of the Ghostbusters mildly bicker, fall out yet come together in the third act when all looks lost. In the old camp we have Murray, Aykroyd, Hudson and Potts, in the hip adult category we have Rudd and Coon aided by James Acaster and Patton Oswalt and in the young wacky, crazy, fun, camp we have the yoof lead by Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace, Celeste O'Connor and Logan Kim. Naturally the kids are the fun ones and constantly outshine their old as fuck elders. 

The by-the-numbers generic off the peg 'plot', which takes a very long time to get up and running sees various random separate plots come together all leading to a bland, generic showdown with a poorly defined demon level boss. McKenna Grace as the emo 15 year old meets a teenage ghost, Emily in an incredibly ridiculous manner when she walks into Central Park with a chessboard and starts playing a game on her own, only for Emily (Alyn Lind) to materialise and play against her. This leads to a relationship that smacks of unrequited love and feels bizarre to say the least. Meanwhile the nu Ghostbusters encounter everyday family issues, like the kids wanting to be treated as adults, and Paul Rudd wanting to be accepted as their father, meanwhile Dan Aykroyd gets a mysterious metal globe that's needed to get the plot or ball moving, then some low level ghosts get busted, a replacement for the Gate Keeper turns up in the guise of Kumail Nanjiani's Fire Master, and a big granite lion statue  replaces the devil dogs from the first film. Added to that the bewildering return of the 'hilarious' Stay Puff marshmallow men and Slimer and you have all the ingredients that made the first film so much fun, so this one will be equally fun, but with a capital F.

But it isn't.

It's a dull greatest hits album performed by a third-rate tribute band. The plot is so dull and predictable that even playing 'guess the plot' bingo feels lazy, the huge cast means there's no time for any nuance or subtly, and the shoehorning in of the old gang just feels like a deeply lazy and cynical ploy. The plot is packed with ridiculous coincidences and each set up is paid off with an action beat, and at no point is there ever any doubt that our vast band of heroes will lose. Added to which, no one dies, so there is simply no jeopardy or sense of drama. 

The big bad monster villain is a total damp squib and the multiple nods to the original film just feels cheap and exploitative. And it says a lot that actors with the charisma of Paul Rudd can do nothing to elevate this dull outing. Nor, for that matter, can Bill Murray who arrives in time for the third act showdown and does absolutely nothing. Watch him during the crowd scene at the very end and you can actually watch him try to think of something to do. The film seems most interested in the least interesting and most irritating character of Phoebe, the 15 year-old know-it-all daughter who wants to be treated as an adult, giving over a large portion of the films' running time to her moping about.

The trailer made this look good and boy did it deceive.  

With a hit rate of 1/5, the future isn't looking good for another one of these film no one wants or cares about. 

4/10

TV MOVIE #1: ROAD HOUSE

 Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Daniela Melchior, Billy Magnussen, Jessica Williams, some other people I can't be arsed to name and Conor McGregor. Written in crayon on the back of an empty fag packet by five people, three of whom came up with the story while two them wrote the sodding screenplay. Story credits goes to  Anthony Bagarozzi, Charles Mondry and David Lee Henry, while the screenplay goes to Anthony Bagarozzi and Charles Mondry and it was based on an original script by David Lee Henry and Hilary Henkin. The whole mess was produced by the once great and legendary Joel Silver and the resulting dollop of generic shit was directed by Doug Liman. Plus it's over 2 hours long.

The story, sees a former MMA fighter, Elwood Dalton (Jake Gyllenhaal) hired by a supporting actress to be her head of security at her Key West seafront dive bar called the Road House. He turns up, makes some friends, drinks loads of coffees and lives on a boat. Then a bunch of biker guys turn up to mess shit up, Dalton puts them in hospital and then has to deal with their boss, an entitled mob bosses son called Bill Brandt (Billy Bagnussen) he wants the bar so he can build his father's beach front super hotel on it. Anyway, because his gang of hired thugs is so useless, Dad send his best psychopath, Knox (Conor McGregor) to kill everybody. In between the bland, CGI-assisted generic fights, Dalton sort of falls in love with a doctor, Ellie (Daniela Melchior) who works in the local hospital that Dalton sends all the men he's crippled to for treatment. Her dad is the corrupt local sherif. 

There follows the usual tropes of kidnap, blackmail, shootouts and fist and foot fights in, on and outside the bar, where bottles are thrown as well as fists and boots as Dalton works his way through the hired help until the showdown with Knox, a showdown so dull and boring that there then needs to a second climax, onboard a yacht to finish it all off with a pathetic wimper.

Whereas the original starring Patrick Swayze was no great shakes it's a goddam classic masterpiece compared to this, lazy, generic, bland sac of shit. 

Jake is a likeable enough actor, and he's certainly hench, my god he's 42 and he's ripped to the tits with muscles, but he's given such a character with a massive black hole of a personality that there's really nothing you can say about him. Sure he suffers from PTSD from a fight where he killed someone, but apart from that he's a walking vacuum of emotion. Conor McGregor could easily murder a paper bag, but he sure as shit couldn't act his way out of one. He by far the worst thing in this, which is saying something. 

Christ, I dozed off an hour and woke up at the climax and then had to rewind to go back to where I'd fallen asleep, this I did but discovered that I just didn't care about any of it. It just struck me as a waste of talent, I mean Joel Silver, Doug Liman and Jake Gyllenhall and this is the best you can come up with. 

If you have the urge to see this, do yourself a favour and watch the original instead, it's shorter by a whole seven minutes, stars Ben Gazzara and the fights are excellent.

Bland, generic and what's the word? Oh yes, rubbish. 

4/10

#18: DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS

 

Starring Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Beanie Feldstein, Colman Domingo, Pedro Pascal, Bill Camp and Matt Damon. Written by Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke. Directed by Ethan Coen. Music by Carter Burwell. Running time 84 minutes.

"What's in the box? wailed Brad Pitt in Seven, in Ethan Coen's Drive-away Dolls we get to find out, although not in the way that David Fincher would have done it, which is a pity, cos it would have made Seven much, much funnier. 

Drive Away-dolls follows two single lesbian best friends, Jamie and Marian (Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan) as they set out on a road trip in a 'drive-way' car rental from Philadelphia to Tallahassee following the break-up of Jamie's relationship with anger-issues cop, Sukie (Beanie Feldstein). The trouble is, the two friends have been given a car with a dangerous secret, one that's locked in a briefcase in the boot that has already cost the life of one man. In hot pursuit are a duo of hit-men, Arliss and Flint (Joey Slotnick and C.J. Wilson) sent by their boss, Chief (Colman Domingo) to get the case at any cost. The three of them are in the employ of a mysterious and incredibly powerful man who will stop at nothing to prevent what's in the box from being revealed. 

Throw in an insanely horny woman's football team, a series of drug-fuelled psychedelic, hippie flashback sequences that may hold the answer to the riddle of the case, a buttoned up senator facing re-election and a series of lesbian bars filled with a kooky bunch of Coen-esq characters.

Using the old and much loved trope of the mystery briefcase and its contents as one of his primers, Ethan and writing partner, Tricia Cooke deliver an raunchy road-movie comedy that starts filled with vim and vigour and two extremely likeable and funny leads, but sadly runs out of steam and putt-putts cross the finishing line one hour and 24 minutes later.

Overall it feels like an early Coen Brothers film, like Raising Arizona, The Hudsucker Proxy or The Big Lebowski, but with the manic humour cranked up to 11. It features two lengthy car sequences as both sets of couples, Jamie and Marian and Arliss and Flint talk at great length in a series of talking heads shots, which does somewhat slow down proceedings and there's a sudden burst of violence at the beginning of the third act which completely tips the balance of the film and robs it of a satisfying climax. Instead we have the introduction of one final character and a disappointing ending which just fizzes when it should have popped.

That said, the acting is great, the two leads have fantastic chemistry and Margaret Qualley's quick-fire Texas delivery is an absolute hoot. Given the role the  buttoned up and sexually frustrated Marian, Geraldine Viswanathan brings a nice dollop of reserve to the proceedings, much needed to temper Jamie. 

This is a film that in lesser hands would have ended up as a tad sleazy and exploitative, but in the hands of Coen and Cooke, the film's multiple sex scenes are impressive has they feature no overt nudity, indeed it's all implied and the sex scenes are raunchy but never titillating. 

Featuring some lovely Coen visual flourishes, editing and camera tricks and a fabulous soundtrack, this is fun, fast and frantic roadmovie which is sadly let down by somewhat flat 3rd arc which feels a tad pat and pre-dick-table, if you'll pardon the pun, because once the briefcase is opened and its contents revealed, the film sort of losses its magic and the final coming together of the separate plot threads feels too clean and crisp.

All that said, it's still an entertaining and funny film. 7/10

#16: DUNE 2

 

STARRING: Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Stellan Skarsgård, Javier Bardem, Dave Bautista, Souheila Yacoub, Charlotte Rampling, Lea Seydoux, Florence Pugh and Christopher Walken. Written by Denis Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts, directed by Denis Villeneuve. Music by Hans Zimmer. Budget $190 million. Running time 165 minutes.

Hmm, not too sure this HUGE budget hollywood remake quite captures the spirit of the original, much-loved 1970s sitcom starring Terry Scott and June Whitfield, particularly in the casting of the considerably younger Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya in the titular roles.

The plot sees Terry coming home after work to tell his wife that his boss is coming over for dinner that night! and a promotion is in the offing. However all she has in the house is a tin of prunes and a cucumber, and tonight is the night of her tap dancing final assessment. Much hilarity ensues as she struggles to create a five course dinner while, due to an unlikely series of accidents, their house is reduced to a pile of rubble after a sandworm plows right through the house after poor Dune decides to practice her tap-dance routine, 'just one more time'.

Dune is a vast undertaking, and in the safe hands of Denis Villeneuve, Frank Herbert's much loved science fiction classic is brought to vivid orange life in two films whose combined running time is 320 minutes or five hours and 20 minutes, so quite remarkably it would be quicker to read the book than sit through both of these in the cinema.

Everything about this film is adult in attitude and tone, nothing about it is just for spectacle or effect. This is serious science fiction, with a strong, deeply serious cast, dealing with complex political issues with many story strands and characters all vying for your attention as intrigue and political machinations are played out with precision and with deep respect. There is no humour or any light-hearted japes to be had in this epic tome of a movie. The story follows on exactly where the last one ended. Little Paul Attridues is stuck in the desert with his mum and they're saved from some big sand snakes by a cranky desert warrior and his beautiful daughter and set off to get revenge for the death of not only Paul's dad, but his entire family and all their servants, and private army at the hands of the mad Baron, a humungous bald floating fat man in a massive moo-moo dress with some serious anger management issues. Meanwhile, said grumpy pants Baron has got two sons, or nephews who are also quite, quite insane and they want Paul dead, indeed everyone from the Emperor of the galaxy right down to the big-eared desert rats want Paul not only dead, but dead-dead, and do their absolute damndest to make this happen. Meanwhile, Paul is rather determined not to die, thank you very much, and begins to make life difficult for everyone forcing the entire galaxy to gather on the desert planet of Dune for an intervention. 

And that's about it. 

Stunning to look at, vast in scope and ambition, without a shred of 'stuff for the kids', and absolutely no sodding transforming robots, stupid superheroes or wise cracking sassy teenage girls with amazing powers. CGI is used incredibly well, the technology in this world of 10,000 is strangely old fashioned, no holograms, or AI (which is banned in this world), but ancient technology and a reliance on swords rather than guns. The design of this world is fantastically realistic and also bizarrely alien, the use of actual physical sets gives the film yet another layer of believability. No need for vast green screens when you've actually built your massive mountain sets.

It's such a delight to see a science fiction film treated with such respect, and so adult in intent. The film is so vast in scope and scale that it's sadly undune by it's on reverence, it's too long and so packed with incident that it drowns under the sheer mass of plot it has to handle. It's also a film that is simultaneously too long and oddly rushed, particularly in the ending, which you want to revel in but can't. Also, spare a thought for poor Florence Pugh and Christopher Walken who are reduced to nothing more than blink and you missed them cameos, I was always fascinated by the character of the Emperor and he feels noticeable by his absence. I wanted more of him, and more of the Baron and perhaps less of the white saviour Paul teaching the desert people how to fight. 

It's funny watching this remake, you're reminded of the flawed David Lynch version, which fumbled the ball by trying to condense the massive book into one film, Denis succeeds with his adaptation, but you're left wishing he'd made his adaptation into three films and given the much needed conclusion room to properly breathe. 

My son, brilliantly created a three word review of Oppenheimer that perfectly captured the film he said: "Long and Loud." For Dune he summed it up in equally brilliant manner with the following, "Long and orange."

Visually spectacular, adult and powerful, but too long and oddly rushed at the same time. 

8/10