[handrous]

Strongly concur on it being a theater watch, ideally Imax.

The effects are next-level good. You won't see all the detail at home unless you've got one hell of a set-up. There are good sets and costumes, and the CG isn't muddy, cheap Marvel "just good enough not to ruin it" stuff, but is truly good.

It's also very unlikely you have an audio system at home that can keep up. This is both because there's a lot of really good stuff going on in the audio mix that'll fall flat on anything but a stellar home audio setup, and a lot of bad stuff (mostly Nolanesque "wtf did that actor just say?") that'll be even worse.

Acting's good. Big screen doesn't hurt that any, certainly.

The story's Dune. If you like Dune, this is a Dune. That's its strength, and its weakness.

If you liked Blade Runner 2049, 100% for sure catch this in theaters. If you haven't seen Blade Runner 2049, friggin' watch it. It's an idea that seems bad (a sequel to Blade Runner? Oh no...) but turned out perfect.

[danpalmer]

Best thing about IMAX for me was the sound. Big screen is great, and helps with the sense of scale of the ships which are stunning, but the stand-out element for me was the ornithopters – their sound design was so good, worth watching in IMAX just for that.

[handrous]

I know of at least one theater complex nearby that has an Imax screen or two, but those are not the best sound in the house. They're very good, but the gold standard (at least around here) are the couple of normal (but quite good) screens + projectors that they've paired with some fancy Dolby thing. It's noticeably better, in movies that are mixed for it (and I think this one is).

However, I'd probably take Imax with very good sound over a normal theater with the best possible sound, for this one. Then again, I've not tried it in the best-sound theaters, so maybe I'm wrong about which is preferable.

I know that, trying to (re-)watch it at home, my normally-plenty-good pieced-together 5.1 system was not up to the task, which is the first time I've felt like that about this set-up of mine—and I watched both Arrival and Blade Runner 2049 on it, so it's been Villeneuve-tested before.

[aerostable_slug]

Re: audio, to add to the above comment, if you are going to watch the new Dune at home without a really good setup (or good headphones) I highly recommend turning on subtitles.

[handrous]

I sat in what should have been around the audio sweet-spot, if there was one, in the pretty good theater I went to, was paying very close attention, and still missed a few lines due to the mix. Most of those lines I missed again trying to watch it at home (where I have no hope, really, because it turns out this movie's too much for my usually-fine surround sound setup). I blame Nolan, and his... niche, at best, audio preferences. Plus Villeneuve for imitating it. I don't remember his previous films requiring this much active effort to tell WTF people are saying.