Denis Villeneuve here to spice up your life.

If ever a book existed that wielded the power to confound an entire industry, it’s Dune. For many years, Frank Herbert’s ground-breaking novel was considered unfilmable, and, if you consider the rough ride the property has had through the years, you can see why.

For a while after publishing in 1965, Herbert’s award-winning science fiction novel found itself bouncing around various states of film development hell - including, bizarrely, a proposed 10-hour, Salvador Dalí-starring version directed by the legendary Alejandro Jodorowsky - before landing on the lap of David Lynch.

Unfamiliar with the story, or even that interested in science fiction, it’s pretty unsurprising that Lynch’s film would eventually turn out to be an incomprehensible mess and a car crash that would taint the Dune name for generations to come. That is, until now.

After yet more years of development purgatory, it was clear it was going to take a filmmaker of skill, vision, ambition, and no little fortitude to turn Dune into something worthy of the big screen. And, as it turns out, Denis Villeneuve was just that man.

In the distant future for humanity, Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) - a brilliant and gifted young man, born into a great destiny beyond his understanding - must journey to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the survival of his family and people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet’s precious resource - ‘spice’ - Paul must learn how to harness his incredible abilities and conquer his fear to survive.

There really are so few filmmakers out there today who would even attempt to adapt Dune for the big screen, let alone succeed at it. In truth, it was always going to take an extraordinary director to pull off such a monumental task - and Denis Villeneuve is absolutely that.

While his history with the box office has been somewhat shaky, Villeneuve’s relative lack of financial success is mitigated by the sheer quality and craftsmanship of his work. Make no mistake, this is a filmmaker that’s been on top of his game for much of his career, and the incredible roll he’s been on for the past few years with Sicario, Arrival, and Blade Runner 2049 continues into Dune.

It really doesn’t take long into the film to realise Villeneuve is onto a winner here, as you can feel the love and reverence he has for the source material positively oozing from Dune’s pours. Combine that with an awe-inspiring dedication to making his vision a success and you have something quite special on your hands.

Ambition will always be a necessity when approaching something as seemingly unwieldy as Dune, but the sheer scale of that ambition in action is unlike anything you’ll have ever witnessed in a cinema before. To do Frank Herbert’s epic sci-fi tome justice in any way, it’s a matter of going big or going home, and Villeneuve has clearly taken this approach to heart, as he goes all in and turns the film’s scope up to eleven.

Of course, cinema has witnessed plenty of epics in its time, and, of late, studios like Marvel seem in a hurry to outdo themselves in the size and scale of their projects, yet there’s never been anything quite like Dune. Without question, this thing is absolutely huge, and (if possible) really must be witnessed on the biggest screen going to bask in the full glory of what Villeneuve is offering.

Production-wise, the film is immaculate, with Dune’s scale coming not just from its expansive setting but every single on-screen element. The sets, the effects, the costumes, the lore, the world-building, Greig Fraser’s cinematography, Hans Zimmer’s score – absolutely everything you see and hear is put in place to make sure you feel the enormity of it all.

At times, it can be a thoroughly overwhelming viewing experience, yet it’s never uncomfortably so, and with the sheer masterfulness of the film’s craft laid out before you, it’s best to just sit back, relax, and roll with it.

While it’d be easy for this enormity to swallow them whole, Dune’s epic ensemble stand together and stand tall to make themselves heard against the film’s colossal milieu. As the stitching that holds Dune’s enormous tapestry together, the vast cast perform minor miracles holding the story in one piece and ensuring the film doesn’t bury them alive under its immense weight.

Although it’s tough to pick a true standout when a cast is as stacked as this, the likes of Oscar Isaac and Rebecca Ferguson lead from the front as the film’s figureheads, while the support of Jason Momoa, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin are key to the story’s emotional resonance. And that’s before you even get to Stellan Skarsgård, whose levels of despicable villainy are so nauseatingly potent they’ll stay with you long after the credits roll.

As the film’s focal point, Timothée Chalamet puts in a decent, if not spectacular, turn as Paul Atreides. It’s certainly a performance feels at risk from disappearing into the background altogether, yet credit must go to Chalamet for growing into the role the further the film goes on, eventually evolving enough to make us genuinely believe and care for him.

Too po-faced for its own good at times, Dune’s languid plot and stone-cold seriousness do often leave the film frequently lacking on an emotional level. As the flip side of Villeneuve’s unerring reverence to the source material, the film so often has you at an emotional arm’s length, unwilling or simply unable to allow us to fully connect with its characters in a satisfying way.

Despite Dune’s expansiveness and heavy-duty world building, the film’s story is a relatively simple one. With Chalamet’s Paul Atreides acting as the narrative’s primary focus, Dune does well to avoid burying itself under the weight of its hefty ensemble, happy to keep the story’s wider universe floating around the edges and homing in on its protagonist’s hero journey throughout.

With the huge influence of Frank Herbert’s book over sci-fi and fantasy, it’s therefore unsurprising that narrative similarities with the likes of Game of Thrones and Star Wars pop up throughout the film, however, despite this level of familiarity, it’s a testament to Denis Villeneuve’s filmmaking prowess that Dune stands out as its own thing entirely.

About as close as you’re ever going to get to a perfect big screen rendering of Herbert’s vision, this adaptation of Dune will undoubtedly go down as the definitive version of the story, with a huge chunk of the credit laid at Villeneuve’s doorstep.

Putting absolutely everything he’s got into honouring the book’s legacy, Villeneuve has gone big, and it’s paid off handsomely. If there’s one thing that can be said of the director’s career thus far, it’s that he doesn’t do things by halves, and, to this end, Dune picks up exactly where he left off with Blade Runner 2049.

Like his previous film, Villeneuve’s diligence and unerring dedication to getting the job done right are nigh-on faultless, and while it’s perfectly reasonable to question whether such commitment to granular detail risks dampening the story’s emotional impact, sometimes you just have to sit back and appreciate the sheer unbridled audacity of it all.

At this point, Villeneuve is a filmmaker at the very peak of his craft, and, in hindsight, there really was no one in the game better placed to honour the legacy of Frank Herbert’s book. Whether Dune actually makes any money at the box office, or winds up going the same way as Blade Runner 2049, is a question for another day. As it is, Denis Villeneuve has pulled off an achievement of sand worm-sized proportions here.

While its heart often feels buried under the sheer enormity of it all, Dune is an otherwise masterfully realised and immaculately constructed adaptation of a book many believed unfilmable. With sound and scope in perfect harmony, Denis Villeneuve has crafted an epic, immersive, and utterly awe-inspiring spectacle that’s absolutely guaranteed to spice up your life.