Dune (1984) - Lynch heads to space, with an (unsurprisingly) strange result

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You can't blame the posters for David Lynch's Dune for not promising a grand space adventure

QUICK REVIEW:

It is notoriously difficult to account for the plot of David Lynch's (Blue Velvet (1986)) huge science fiction debacle Dune, but here's a taste of it:

Dune takes place thousands of years out in the future and revolves around the interplanetary struggle for control over the spice 'melange' and huge sand-worms monsters, - SPOILER that turn out to be said spice!

Dune is a very strange film, just as one might expect a major SF adaptation (of Frank Herber's (Soul Catcher (1972)) 1965 novel), shot by Lynch in Mexico to be.
The film's very solemn form and the space travels in the film seem very inspired by the spectacularly successful Star Wars movies (1977; '80; '83), but Dune doesn't technically reach those films by a long-shot, and the warmth and humor from George Lucas' space universe is also nowhere to be found.
Dune brings a huge, curious star cast together: Brad Dourif (One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)), José Ferrer (Lawrence of Arabia (1962)), Kyle McLachlan (Twin Peaks (1990-91)), Virginia Madsen (Sideways (2004)), Jürgen Prochnow (Das Boot (1981)), Patrick Stewart (X-Men 2 (2003)), Sting (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)), Max Von Sydow (The Exorcist (1973)), Sean Young (Blade Runner (1982)) and many more. 
It is at times dreamy and fascinating, and at other times boring and elongated. - Although the 137 minute theatrical cut that I have seen is, obviously, quite a bit shorter than the 3-hour cut that Lynch had hoped to release. He did not have final cut, - producers Dino de Laurentiis (Conan the Destroyer (1984)) and daughter Raffaella de Laurentiis (Conan the Barbarian (1982)) did, and they were aiming for a 2-hour film, which they had agreed upon with distributor Universal Pictures and achieved, almost, with huge difficulties.
Dune had a long development story, spanning more than a decade: Chilean auteur director Alejandro Jodorowsky (The Holy Mountain (1973)) was one of the directors who was highly involved with it, before the job finally went to Lynch. Jodorowsky's work on his unmade version of the film is chronicled in the recent, praised documentary Jodorowsky's Dune (2013).

Related reviews:

David Lynch: Mulholland Drive (2001) or, A Woman Searching For Her Identity (guest review)
Blue Velvet (1986) or, The Strange World 

Sting ... this is what he looks like ... in David Lynch's Dune

Kyle McLachlan in David Lynch's Dune

Watch the trailer for the film here

Cost: 40 mil. $
Box office: 30.9 mil. $ (US only)
= Uncertainty
[But certainly a flop. How dismal the flop size was is not possible to ascertain without a world gross figure. I do see that 2.3 mil. people paid admission to it in France, which isn't bad, plus 675k Spaniards, and it made 2.3 AU$ in Australia. It was most likely a huge flop. It did get Oscar-nominated for Best Sound. In the US, it premiered #2 behind Beverly Hills Cop (1984).]

What do you think of Dune?
Anyone seen the 2000 mini-series with the same name?
And/or read the novels?
If so, how is/are it/they?

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994) - Shadyac's 6th gear Jim Carrey smacker

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+ Best Movie of the Year

+ Best American Movie of the Year + Best Animal Movie of the Year + Breakthrough of the Year: Jim Carrey + Best Comedy of the Year + Best Debut of the Year + Most Deserved Hit of the Year + Best Florida Movie of the Year + Best Huge Hit Movie of the Year + Best Poster of the Year + Most Underrated Movie of the Year

Star Jim Carrey brazenly flashing his card, in ridonkulous garbs, on the iconic poster for Tom Shadyac's Ace Ventura: Pet Detective

When US football team the Miami Dolphins' mascot, a real dolphin, gets kidnapped shortly before the team's Super Bowl finale, pet detective Ace Ventura is put on the case, and he works it with zeal and his special brand of not exactly self-effacing charm.

Jim Carrey (Kids (2014, short)) shines as a jet-fueled star in his first lead role as the comic genius that he is. There simply isn't a single bad or semi-bad scene in Virginian master co-writer/director Tom Shadyac's (Liar Liar (1997)) overwrought, tight goofball-comedy Ace Ventura, which is his debut. The film radiates playful, light-hearted inventiveness in its use of music, costumes, hair design and storyline, which is funny on its own and hysterically funny with Carrey's performance plastered all over it. Shadyac wrote the script with Carrey and Jack Bernstein (Monk (2006-09)).
He has once shared that he found during a dinner with Anthony Hopkins that he had played Hannibal Lector much like Carrey had played Ventura: By moving like an animal. (In Hopkins' case, it had been like a reptile.) And if you've seen Ace Ventura, you'll probably be able to guess that in Carrey's case, he moved like a bird. (Thank God fellow Canadian Rick Moranis turned down the part as Ventura, so that Carrey got the offer; Moranis would surely never have gotten these moves out.)
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective is a comedy classic, and together with The Cable Guy (1996), it is arguably Carrey's funniest movie.

Related posts:

 

The inevitable sequel: Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995) or, Nuts in Africa

Tom Shadyac: 2007 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Evan Almighty (2007) - Shadyac's monumentally miscalculated sequel/professional gravestone (hope not) 

Bruce Almighty (2003) - Carrey makes laughter in well-made what-if-you-were-God-comedy

1994 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

Top 10: Best comedies reviewed by Film Excess to date

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 15 mil. $
Box office: 107.2 mil. $
= Huge hit (returned 7.14 times its cost)
[Ace Ventura: Pet Detective was released 4 February (USA) and runs 86 minutes. Moranis was offered the part but turned it down; Whoopi Goldberg, Judd Nelson and Alan Rickman were then considered, before the producers noticed Carrey and cast him. Shooting took place in Florida, including Miami, from May - July 1993. The film opened #1 to a 12.1 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 5 weeks in the top 5, of which another 2 were as #1, (#1-#2-#2-#1-#3), and grossed 72.2 mil. $ (67.4 % of the total gross). Roger Ebert gave the film a 1/4 star review, translating to 6 notches lower than this one. Carrey in 1994 went from being virtually unknown to becoming the world's #2 box office star, behind Tom Hanks, as his 3 1994 movies Ace Ventura, The Mask and Dumb and Dumber grossed 550 mil. $. Steve Oederkerk made the direct sequel, the very successful but mediocre Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995). A 1995-00 animated TV-series and a 2009 direct-to-video spin-off sequel have been made, both without involvement from any of the principals. Shadyac returned with The Nutty Professor (1996). Carrey returned in The Mask (1994). Ace Ventura: Pet Detective is rotten at 47 % with a 4.55/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective?