Cane Wilson’s review published on Letterboxd:
I had a very long rant typed out but my phone crashed and deleted all of it, so in summary, there is no emotion at all, the only 3 characters with personality die or get sidelined at the end, and the camera was almost always eye level with an F stop of 1.2. Why the fuck is your f stop so low when I’m trying to watch DUNE. Big giant set pieces of sand and people and large scale action, what the fuck was the point of blowing 190 million dollars if you’re gonna stick to simple ass shots that basically look the same as green screen?
If you know me, you know that I usually just like every film I see. This time, I do not see or understand where the love for this is coming from. It’s an entertaining movie, but there is nothing for me to latch onto emotionally except the scattered remains of the few well written characters.
This being said, there was a 20 minute or so sequence right in the middle from the Baron’s perspective, and it holds pretty much all the emotion in the film. That part was 5 stars alone.
Afterthought: I want to add that the sand worms are pretty much no longer a threat here, in the first film the sound of a single harvester brought worms. Here? 3 harvesters fucking exploded, and not a single worm in sight. They barely ever sandwalk, and when they do it’s supposed to be really important I guess. They try to explain this a little by claiming some spots are worm free, but I just don’t buy how little they show up here.