Armed with sandworms and big screen spectacle, the science fiction epic stormed the North American box office this weekend earning $81.5 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel is undeniably staggering. But his Dune also feels rudimentary, as if he's managed his source material without fully mastering it.

With the new 2021 movie, director Denis Villeneuve turns the novel's meditations on race, culture and colonialism into riveting and undeniable cinema.

Denis Villeneuve's take on Frank Herbert's novel of galactic intrigue and revolution manages to be both epic and introspective, though it doles out its story with gravid deliberateness.