Roedy Green This is a very long movie, two DVDs worth. It started life as a TV miniseries with a very fat budget. The sets are lavish. The screen crawls with extras. The costumes are as diverse and bizarre as anything that would come down a Paris runway.The main reason to see this movie is Alice Krige who plays the grandmother, Lady Jessica Atreides. You will recognise her as the Borg Queen from Star Trek. She has a magical voice and regal manner. She is absolutely riveting. She can make the silliest lines sound profound. She starts out as a rather quiet character and builds in majesty and power. She is like a super-hero Emma Peel. Even though most of this movie is rather silly, she is spectacular.James McAvoy, as Leto, is eye candy, and conveniently rarely wears a shirt.The costumes are an eclectic mix of Egyptian, Cecil B. de Mille Ten Commandments and Star Trek original. However, when the empress Alia Atreides paraded around court in a 1950s slut bathing suit, or wrapped in aluminum foil, my credibility choked. The bizarre Japanese-inspired hair styles of Susan Sarandon's character are a hoot, very inventive.It has an international cast. The principals speak in crisp upper crust British accents, but then Susan Sarandon sometimes slips into her slurring American barfly Louise character from Thelma and Louise. It is jarring and makes no sense. Her accent becomes more regal as the movie progresses. She has not that big a part, but she makes a great villain.Two actors play Farad'n Corrino, son of Princess Wensicia Corrino (Susan Sarandon). Unfortunately, they don't look even remotely alike, and the adult version has beefy look, dull mien and accent like a Florida quarterback. It is just embarrassing.There are three generations represented, yet the actors playing them are almost the same age. The actors don't age even when 20 years supposedly pass. Some of the female actors look quite alike, and with all the costume and hairstyle changes it becomes a challenge to figure out whom you are looking at.I exaggerate, but the plot goes roughly like this. At random intervals a random character suddenly whips out a dagger and kills another randomly chosen character. Why? Often the killer offers a rationalisation, but never once did it make any sense.Not until the movie is well under way does anyone seem remotely heroic or even sympathetic, other than the child Farad'n Corrino who sick of being groomed for a warrior emperor. Everyone is power mad, greedy, and nuts.The special effects are movie quality, except for one scene when Ian McNeice (Bert Large in Doc Martin) as the ghost of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen floats around the room like a cardboard cutout from a Topper episode and another when Alia Atreides dodges flying video game saw blades.One of the most magical moments in the movie is Leto, lying on a grassy meadow. It feels surreal . That proves the movie has impressed its world on your mind.It is a silly movie; it does not make much sense, but it is visually entertaining. You won't be bored.

fdorin85 I've read all the books from Frank Herbert's Dune, even the continuation written by his son Bryan Herbert. The books are just amazing and can be called the true rival of Isaac's Asimov Foundation series. "The Children of Dune" story is somewhere at the middle of Dune series, and without reading the books or at least watching the movie "Dune", which is the first part of series, it may be hard for you to understand all the intrigues. But for those passionate about Dune's universe this movie is WOW. I remained pleased surprised about how good the actors played their roles and also how perfect was each one for their role. Also all the decorations create a very good impression, being like I imagined while reading the books. I recommend this movie to fans and not only, but to those who really want to imagine a completely universe.

elgrego Totally Flawed!Sci Fi's Battle Star Galactica, with no great source material shows that with a TV budget you can make decent Sci Fi drama. This just misses in almost every way, and is much, much, much worse than the (couple of years earlier) Sci Fi's Dune.(And my put on the David Lynch Dune of 1984--wonderful stuff, it just was too short, which made reading the book first almost mandatory to "get it".)Firstly one has to preface this with the "fact" (or at least almost universal agreement) that while Dune (the book) was a science fiction/fantasy work that transcended the genre, his later books were more of a muddle. It just was not clear what they were really about. The source material for this movie was particularly so. In it Frank Herbert essentially said, "Oh, the whole moral, religious, and ecological basis of the the original book were all a big mistake." It is still good sci-fi, but it made the book much less universal. (And the subsequent books and especially most of the ghost written books by his son (supposed to be based on Franks notes) are more so. Some to the point of silliness.)So the very long source material is more problematic than in the original very long Dune book.OK, that out of the way . . .This is just very, very, very made for TV Movie. Poorly acted. OK Alia was not so bad (Daniella Amavia), but her psychotic episodes got pretty tedious, and it was very small. In the source material Alia was a goddess, here she is just crazy mean bitch. Julie Cox as Princess Irulan gave a better than average performance; but as noted by many here and for the first Sci Fi channel, she was a minor character in the source material (the books). It seems pointless to expand characters when your already cannot fit the source material into the movie. I also agree that Alec Newman playing Paul has learned how to act between Dune and Children of Dune. He was tolerable here.This is not a comic book kind of story. Susan Sarandon made it so. She was not scary, she was silly. She if a phenomenal actress, which makes me believe that the direction is mainly at fault. Like William Hurt (also an academy award winner) in the Sci Fi channel's Dune it is a fairly small part. They paid for a name who apparently came in for a day or two of quick shooting. (Funny Hurt was kind of wooden when he should have been charismatic. They took Sarandon exactly the opposite way.)The other acceptable performance was in the Baron Harkonan part, Ian McNiece. He was OK, but not close to the how the book's character as a total moral abomination. Big Star Trek fans will like Alice Krige. She has a real physical presence but the acting is just OK.For the rest (to quote from the original books and movies), "nothing". The twins were apparently extracted from some mediocre daytime soap opera. Very pretty blonds who smile constantly.Dialogue has been partially updated but dumb.-- Story: You just don't care. In the book, even though it isn't close to the the original Dune in quality, you really do. There is mystery. There confusion (in a good way). There is a premise (even if it is opposite of the first book). Gone.I'm not going to go into the relationship to time and place and religion of the 1960's that produced Frank Herbert's original material. Just will say, this is not about anything. A good movie needs to be about something, or have a riveting plot, or have great (or OK) acting. This is just a movie that is sort-of about the book. -- Special effects: Good special effects alone don't make for a good movie, they make for a very good video game. You need the rest for a good movie. That being said. These are not good special effects. I watch it and think, O, I could do that on my Mac at home with Apple's software. Which is what I think they mainly did. Lots of it doesn't get there. And those stupid tigers---so video game-ish. CGI characters just aren't there yet (for movies), and these are not good ones.And what is with the racing across the desert lots and lots and lots. And lots. And lots. BFD.---And the absolute worst: The costumes and overall look and feel. Lots of velvet Jester's hats. Dark clothing for the desert. Green jungle camouflage stillsuits. Hello? Jungle? Really distracting. Cheap. They do not drape properly. Wigs look like they are made of yarn. The human species is supposed to be diverging, there is not attempt at representing this. The "reverend mother's" head pieces barely stay on their heads and seem to be made out of rice paper. Oh, and the Bene Gesserit are not supposed to age, so the actresses are just too old (except for Susan Sarandon who is just too silly).---And the final resolution between the women . . . Huh? Dumb. Stupid. A comedy's ending, not a drama of a thousand worlds.

dosomeeffingscience There was a lot of good stuff in Children Of Dune, all the great characters and themes from the book, and a lot of talent went into making it. But all anyone *does* is wander around looking like they're plotting something. Who wants to watch that? It was more like Next Generation than the original Star Trek. Picard always wants to pursue a dialogue and find a diplomatic solution, occasionally raising his voice in an authoritative shakespearean manner. Yawn! Kirk would get in there and punch someone's lights out, or kiss them. Or both! Sex and violence, kiss 'em and kick 'em, that's what we want to see.So, good to look at, if you're a Dune fan and just want to see the story told in moving pictures. Otherwise, zzzzzz....