I sat down to watch the 2003 mini-series "Children of Dune" straight after having sat through the 1984 movie "Dune". All in all, a good and highly satisfactory mini-series. James McAvoy is an inspired addition and Alice Krige is regal and somewhat calculating, stealing all her scenes. Alec Newman is a very good lead and much more at ease. The acting is good on the whole and greatly improved from the 2000 adaptation. Never is there the sensation that the director didn't know what to do with Children of Dune or have little interest with it.
The directions shows solidity, a sense of involvement and heart and a willingness to take charge but being sympathetic to the actor's needs. Children of Dune succeeds even more on its own terms(to me adaptations are always much more fairly judged on their own merits), the story here is thrilling, mostly well-structured, always maintains interest and unlike Lynch's film is easy to follow. There are a few changes like the maturing of the twins but nothing that is enough to annoy anybody, and it is true in spirit to the story and Herbert's style. Adaptation-wise, Children of Dune does a good job with a complicated book though towards the end at times feeling incomplete. It is also relevant to each scene and doesn't try to include too much exposition or filler. Most of the dialogue provokes thought and is intelligently written, a few instances of awkwardness but not in a way that hugely problematic. Overall, an appropriate and very dynamic music score. The music has the right moodiness and majesty, in the more moody elements it is so compellingly dark it's haunting and the majestic elements are genuinely rousing and somewhat uplifting too. The whole mini-series is also very well-photographed throughout. The special effects clearly look as though time was spent on them, they look well textured and designed and they look natural, there are a few cartoonish ones here and there but not many at all. The production values in Children of Dune are just great, the costumes are eye-catching with a very interesting and never weird mix of styles and the sets are gorgeously rendered with a lot of striking colours and attention to detail. That of the way, Children of Dune is good, of the three Frank Herbert Dune adaptations- the others being the David Lynch film and the 2000 adaptation- as an adaptation and on its own it's the best one, and that's saying a lot as the other two adaptations had moments but were lacking in too many areas. Children of Dune did have a couple of areas where things could have been improved, Susan Sarandon overacts with an accent that was at home in Thelma and Louise but out of place here, the mini-series does get to a slow start and can drag a little at times and there are occasional moments of cartoonish effects, stilted dialogue and incompleteness.
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