I liked the movie... (spoilers)

And here's why (The first count, I'll say, is the most important):

1. I watch it when I'm high. Anyone who doesn't like it, let me just say, introduce a bit of canni to your experience and you'll probably enjoy it more.

2. The dialogue and costumes are 'crap,' but this is a culture that supposedly exists... What, thousands of years in the future? The only costume complaints I had were some of the ones in the dinner scene, those extreme triangles, and I think the sardukar costumes were ridiculous, but none were a movie-killer. I liked the huge Bene Gesserit hat.

3. The dialogue might have been leaden and overdone, but, again, this is the royalty of a culture almost completely alien to our own and I found it quite poetic and well-scripted (when the baron wasn't rhyming, which seemed a stretch) and overall, I actually prefer it to the book which isn't at all special. I just wish they had better actors to deliver it.

4. (A few spoilers for this bit) The intrigue. The book has other merits, but as far as reveals and certain plot points go, I prefer the miniseries. The reveals and Paul's prescience came too early in the book, I think, and it lacked the clever weaving feel of the miniseries. I especially enjoyed the plots going on with the harkonnen versus the atreidies, with the baron finally, essentially, being outschemed by a two-year old. I felt it wasn't quite as poignent in the book.

5. I liked that Irulan played a bigger role, and I liked that Paul began as emotionally immature. It makes his character change from dissatisfied prince to warrior-prophet that much more compelling, and Irulan is a real character with ambitions and desires instead of just a reference.

My complaints: Pacing. We don't need the fremen chanting "Maud'dib" for five minutes, and then chanting "Maudi" five minutes directly after. That and a few other instances I felt would be well served by chopping that down and getting to the next bit. I remembering thinking "Alright, alright, I get it." a lot.

Rabban dying: It was cliche and it bugged me.

All in all, I felt it was better than the next miniseries. If you're going to be true to the books, then you simply need more time or you wind up with what I felt was just a series of too recognizable b-actors with mundane dialogue and terrible pacing, even worse than the first miniseries. Instead of concentrating on Alia writhing on a bed for ten minutes or a fly-over of the crappy CGI city we've already seen five times before, let's get some intrigue in there. The only redeeming part of the 'Children of Dune' miniseries was the Preacher.

EDIT: I have the director's cut, if that matters.