The first Dune reactions found their way online yesterday, but it seems critics in Venice weren't the only ones to catch the movie early. Now, a total of 29 reviews have been counted on Rotten Tomatoes, and Denis Villeneuve's latest sci-fi blockbuster has a decent enough 83% score.
Dune occasionally struggles with its unwieldy source material," reads the Critics Consensus, "but those issues are largely overshadowed by the scope and ambition of this visually thrilling adaptation."
The reviews certainly aren't as glowing as those Tweets, and an awful lot of them point out that the movie could struggle to appeal to a general audience. The odds are already stacked against Dune due to that planned HBO Max release, but if regular moviegoers can't get their heads around it...well, the chances of Villeneuve getting to make a sequel are going to be drastically reduced.
"Villeneuve draws you into an astonishingly vivid, sometimes plausibly unnerving vision of the future," reads the Los Angeles Times review. Entertainment Weekly adds, "If you're already knee-deep in Herbert mythology, you'll thrill to every whispered word; if you come in not knowing the difference between a Holtzman shield and a hole in the floor, it's a longer walk."
The Hollywood Reporter elaborates on that point: "Part hero's journey and part survival story, the film keeps throwing arcane details at you, which might thrill the Herbert geeks but will have most everyone else zoning out." Vanity Fair was similarly unimpressed, noting: "In all its marvel, Dune forgets to do basic things like give us someone or something to root for, or feel for, or think about for longer than the stretch of the film."
On the plus side, USA Today says that, "Even with its imperfections, 'Dune' as an experience is awesome, with astounding special effects, great production design and a propulsive Hans Zimmer score."
Dune is set to be released on October 22, later this year.