This is a film that doesn’t dramatically harness the vast forces it’s gesturing at, but trundles determinedly along with very little variation of tone or pace.

Peter Bradshaw

The Guardian

Watching Dune is a bit like trying to dig your way out of a sandstorm. Wave after wave of lore and nomenclature pile up around you until you finally succumb, and are buried. At which point you’re best off giving up on the movie as any sort of coherent, compelling piece of science-fiction and simply embrace it as camp.

This movie is a real mess, an incomprehensible, ugly, unstructured, pointless excursion into the murkier realms of one of the most confusing screenplays of all time.

Roger Ebert

Chicago Sun-Times