Reviews

If you think an entire movie about a woman alone in her apartment cant be entertaining,funny,sad and fascinating this movie will prove you wrong. There is even a plot twist or two that will take you by suprise. This movie in itself proves what a stunning talent Whoopie is and shows she's probably even more talented as an actress than as a comedian.

While the recent 'dune' miniseries was a fairly bad attempt .. with the wrong actors among other things hampering it.. this miniseries could best be considered taking up where the old Kyle McLaughlin movie version left off. It traces the people and royalty of the planet Arakis from through the next two books and .. with the exception of the book "God Emperor" (i believe it is) does an excellent job. The special effects are excellent and with one minor exception never over the top. They blend with the story rather than trying to power it. The one exception is Lito runnign through the desert.. at a speed that would break the sound barrier. There was no plot reason for this and no justification from the books and frankly it looked silly.. but it was the one minor glitch. The acting was top notch top to bottom and i think gives a deeper insight into the books... in the end you come away realising that the Atraides family in the longterm werent any better for the people of dune than any other monarchy.

One severe criticism i have of the promotion of the movie is the 'feminist' angle. This may sound ridiculous , but the SciFi channel advertised this strongly as having a feminist slant , hoping no doubt to pull in female viewers to genre that is traditionally viewed as a male domain. In fact the movie is neither feminist nor chauvinist. All the character and actors play strong parts.. as they should as the strong point of Dune is the drama and power of the story. Every action.. every word having binding effect. Perhaps the one reason they decided to go that way was Daniela Amavia who was simply AMAZING as Alia. Despite acting next to stunningly talented people like Susan Sarandon,and a cast brimming with talent you cant take your eyes off her, and not just because she's beautiful. Her presence effuses the entire story and she makes a character who was fairly important in the books the Center of the Dune trilogy. The only tragedy here was her characters death.. and the fact they wont be able to cast her in God Emperor whenever they decide to make it.