The actual world simply felt too small once I stepped out of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune. There weren’t any huge spaceships able to rocket off to planets in distant galaxies. No Brutalist palaces amid limitless desert vistas. No building-sized sandworms roaming about, desperate to devour anybody who disturbed them. Just me and site visitors on Atlanta’s I-285.

This newest Dune adaptation is not excellent — it is at instances emotionally empty, and it is principally arrange for a second film we might by no means see — but it surely efficiently transported me to the universe Frank Herbert created over half a century in the past. The movie focuses on half of the novel, telling the story of Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), a sheltered baron’s son who strikes to the desert planet of Arrakis. It’s an essential submit, because it’s the one world that produces the melange, or spice, which powers interstellar journey. But as Paul shortly learns, it is also a harmful place for his elite household, and it is the place he learns he can also be a possible messiah. You know, typical teen boy stuff.

After being wowed by Dune within the theater, I plan to rewatch it at residence on HBO Max, the place it is also being launched right this moment. But I’m sure the expertise will not be the identical, even on my 120-inch projector display. This Dune calls for to be seen on one thing even greater—a spot the place your very sense of being might be dwarfed. Dune made me really feel like Paul Atreides standing in entrance of a skyscraper-sized sandworm, ready to be consumed. And I welcomed it.

Of course, it is no easy factor to trek out to the cinema today, not with coronavirus nonetheless raging and fellow theatergoers refusing to take primary security precautions. (The vaccines are protected. Masks work. Please defend your self and others.) But if you happen to can handle to soundly see it in theaters — maybe by renting out a non-public display with buddies — you may be reminded of what makes that have so particular. I watched it within the second row of a reasonably typical multiplex theater, and it nonetheless floored me. I can solely think about what it will be like on a full-sized IMAX display, which may attain as much as 98 ft tall.

Dune is at its finest when Villeneuve and cinematographer Greig Fraser allow you to soak within the vistas, the regal-yet-alien costumes and the wealth of background particulars. It’s pure visible world-building. At one level, a personality’s eyes briefly flash white when he is requested to compute the price of an imperial envoy’s trek via the celebs. It’s by no means defined, however you get it. This model of gradual burn sci-fi is not for everybody, however if you happen to loved Arrival or Blade Runner 2049, Villeneuve’s earlier style forays, there is a good probability you are primed for this model of storytelling.

Even earlier than I noticed something on the display, although, I felt Dune in my intestine. As I waited for my screening to start, an alien voice started talking out of nowhere, sounding prefer it got here completely from the theater’s subwoofers. It posed a query concerning the energy of drums, however actually, it was as if the film was saying, “Sit up, pay attention, you’re not on Earth anymore.”