Dune Review: 7 Ups & 3 Downs
6. The Jaw-Dropping Visuals
It is absolutely stating the obvious to call Dune one of the best looking movies ever made, but seriously, this thing is almost impossibly beautiful.
Denis Villeneuve's visual craft is absolutely sublime in even the film's slowest and most "boring" scenes, teaming with Rogue One cinematographer Greig Fraser to milk the lush natural expanses and practical sets for every drop they're worth.
There's no denying that the practical elements - the sets, the costumes, and general production design - are absolutely incredible, though Dune's real genius is in so expertly blurring the lines between the tangible and the digital.
The film's VFX are some of the finest ever put on the big screen, lacking the garish blurriness that so often makes green screen photography stand out, the actors instead seamlessly placed within environments where audiences mostly won't know what's "real" and what isn't.
Even the more obviously digital elements - the massive hangars, ships, and yes, the worms - look spectacular, such that, all in all, Dune is very clearly a frontrunner for Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects Oscars.
If you choose to see just one movie on the big screen this year over waiting for a home release, Dune is probably the one to go for on the pure basis of its overwhelming visual grandeur.