The other day I saw Dune opening night. I have been anxiously awaiting this film since it was first announced. When I heard that they were going to make a Dune movie directed by Denis Villeneuve, scored by Hans Zimmer, and featuring a lineup of incredible actors such as Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Oscar Isaac, Rebecca Ferguson, and more, it felt as though the planets were aligning. All it would need was Roger Deakins as director of photography and you would have the best in the industry heading every aspect of this film. After Blade Runner 2049 which is a personal 10/10 film, I was expecting another home run from Denis Villeneuve and it looked like Dune was lined up to be. However, despite my hype, I tried to temper my expectations. And I am glad I did, because while this is a great film, my stomach sank once the title card rolled and I saw the dreaded words, “Part One”. I don’t know what exactly I expected, with the amount of source material in the original novel I knew they weren’t going to tell the entire story. However, the fact that it is a part one really drags down the movie as a whole. Because while the film is absolutely incredible, it is severely lacking in regards to a satisfying payoff. While there is a traditional three act structure in theory, each act feels just like another first act. Again, there is a traditional narrative structure technically, with an introduction, a second act low point, a final encounter, and everything else. And all these narrative elements are technically tied together through cause and effect in the storyline. Yet the action and payoff of many narrative beats are essentially independent of each other and happen sort of indirectly. This is not necessarily a bad thing, if anything I think it is a unique and interesting way to approach the plot. However, because the sequence of events are so disjointed from one another the story feels like it’s almost floating rather than rigid and cohesive. And perhaps that was by design, and in fact I enjoy how it is structured like that in a way. But a result of this structure is the film suffers overall, as the overall experience essentially feels like two and a half hours of build-up and it just sort of ends. It feels very unsatisfying this way. However, again I must mention this might not be a bad thing. If anything I am very intrigued by the prospect of this twist in classic narrative structure, with all the traditional plot events technically being there, but in a way taking a back seat to the overarching plot. The only real way to determine whether or not this approach to the story was a good or bad thing is to wait for the following film or films. These little nested acts within acts of a multi-film story might pay off well. As for everything else in the film, there isn’t really much to say other than they’re perfect. The visual effects, sound design, musical score, cinematography, acting, and world building are essentially infallible. The only real problems I can think of are two shots that don’t look good. The first one being a shot where the actress is clearly out of focus, and the second one which you can see in one of the trailers, where there is a suit of armor that opens up to show Timothée Chalamet’s face very poorly superimposed inside. Other than those two shots everything visually is literally perfect. The only other real problem is there were some issues with audio mixing where some dialogue was very difficult to hear, which is important in a film with so much important exposition. Or there would be times where the dialogue was easy to hear, but the music and sound effects were very clearly turned down. Despite this review containing mostly criticism I would have to give Dune a 9/10. It is an amazingly crafted film and I cannot wait for future installments.