Dune

Now remember, walk without rhythm, and we won't attract the worm.

Strangely enough, during my fairly recent repeat viewing of 1984's DUNE, I found the film reminiscent of 1980's FLASH GORDON.   I'm certain that is not what David Lynch had in mind.  The writer/director has in fact cited DUNE as a failure, the one mistake on his resume.  He won't even speak about it these days.  With members of the De Laurentiis family producing, the compromises were (expectedly) many.  Someone thought that Lynch's idiosyncratic sensibilities would be appropriate for this adaptation of Frank Herbert's cult novel.  It could've worked, could've been a unique addition to the canon of big screen sci-fi.

At times, it is.  Lynch fans will enjoy discerning Lynchian moments.   You could certainly argue that most any scene featuring the wildly effeminate Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (somewhat fearlessly portrayed by Kenneth McMillan), a vile, overweight villain with throbbing boils on his face, could be described as such.  A ring figures prominently into the plot, as does psychic ability.  The darkness (betrayal, greed, lust) within man is explored quite thoroughly.  There is an earnest hero who has his own demons.

DUNE was not well received upon its release. Fans of Herbert's novels felt the movie, while comprehensive, shortchanged exposition and explanation.  Film critics were mostly savage toward it.  Many of them found the plot far too complicated.  Really?

In a nutshell: In the year 10,091 Emperor Shaddam IV orders the assassination of Paul Atreides, son of the beloved Duke Leto Atreides, the Shaddam's rival.  Paul is an apparent prophet who may be the messiah the harsh desert planet of Arrakis (aka "Dune") is seeking.  This planet is rich in the "spice" - a drug that can allow mortals to live longer and facilitate a very useful form of travel through space.  Giant worm creatures attack anyone attempting unauthorized harvesting of the spice.  The Emperor additionally hatches a plan to have the noble family Harkonnen ambush the Atreides clan on Dune after the latter have been given control of it.  There's more, and although the plot does get convoluted, it is really not all that difficult to sort.

We hear most of the main characters' thoughts, a device that might've been both informative and fascinating, but rapidly becomes annoying and, at times, unintentionally funny.

DUNE has a good cast.  Kyle Mclachlan is more than up to the task as Paul,  in his first of several collaborations with Lynch.  Everett McGill, with whom Lynch also worked on both Twin Peaks series, does nice work.  Sting gets a big climactic fight scene at the end, but prior just sneers a lot and wears skimpy outfits.  Max Von Sydow, who plays a "planetologist" on Dune, is right at home in this sort of film.

Despite a huge (for the time) budget, the movie looks cheap.  Some of the visual effects are intriguing, others embarrassingly low rent.  Adding to the overall cheese is the score by Toto (with additional work by Brian Eno), which is reminiscent of 1970s sci fi.  When Queen scored FLASH GORDON, they were aiming for camp.  Toto's work sounds like an attempt to be serious, yet their compositions suggest accompaniment to battle scenes designed by Ray Harryhausen.  Nothing at all wrong with that, but DUNE aspired to be a far more ambitious and artistic feature.  It ends up looking and feeling like an odd clash of the cartoonish and the more high minded.  I love Lynch, but watching this movie again made me that much more curious as to what Jorodowsky could've done had his plans succeeded.