NOTE: There are some very minor spoilers in here. Not big reveals, but plot points are discussed.
The sleeper has awakened! After a strike-related postponement in 2023, this weekend finally saw the release of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two. Thanks to a massive snowstorm, I actually got a chance to see the film twice. And that snowstorm and the resulting snow dump definitely felt like a reverse-Dune. I felt like a snow Fremen walking my kids to school this morning in my parka stillsuit.
Like many, I fell for Frank Herbert’s novel, Dune, in high school, followed by its subsequent books. I also saw David Lynch’s Dune for the first time in high school. And while it’s hard to recommend that film to anyone, it is still my definitive version of the story, mostly because it manages to cram in most of the details and lore from the book. It took reading the book a few times and seeing the movie a bunch, but I fully understand the lore of Dune — and it was worth putting in the time to do all that homework.
In Dune: Part Two, we pick up almost immediately after the end of Part One (here’s my review of Part One). Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and his mother Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) are taken in by the Fremen, who are divided by their opinions: is Paul the Voice from the Outer World that has been prophesized? Or is that just Bene Gesserit propaganda, planted hundreds of years ago to control the Fremen? Meanwhile, the evil Harkonnens, having just eradicated the Atreides, resume spice production on Arrakis, as a new champion, Feyd Rautha (Austin Butler), rises within their ranks. But Paul knows that he who can destroy a thing, controls a thing, so he sets out to disrupt spice production to bring the Emperor (Christopher Walken) to him so he can have his revenge and free the Fremen.
While I have a few misgivings about the film, they are minor. What we do have here, is an epic and sweeping science fiction drama that has been rendered with such powerful care and attention as to make it a game changer. Some are saying it’s better than 2001. While that’s just silly, it definitely makes its mark on the genre. As with the first movie, the scope is staggeringly massive — giant buildings and ships in the Brutalist style of design and architecture, taming giant sandworms, heart-pounding battles in the open desert, and a sound design (and soundtrack) that is so huge and spellbinding that it’s, pardon the pun, out of this world. See this movie in a theatre.
Villeneuve has created a world — no, worlds — that are unique and amazing. The Harkonnen home world of Giedi Prime, shot with infrared cameras for a stark black and white texture, is something to behold. As are many of the costumes and strange artifacts that litter this universe. It’s all so fully realized that it feels real.
There is also an interesting push/pull in the form of Paul’s godhood. Stilgar (Javier Bardem, stealing scenes like the Hamburgler) believes in the prophesy, where Paul’s lover, Chani (Zendaya), thinks it distracts from the true purpose of the Fremen. This film explores that fundamentalism more than the Lynch version, which tells it more as a mythological hero’s journey. Both work well, but it was a nice change of pace and made for some surprising humour to have Paul’s Super Being status challenged.
My only real problems with the movie that it sometimes feels like it left certain scenes on the cutting room floor or some of the narrative is confused. For a movie that’s almost three hours long, it blasts through story. You won’t be checking your watch too much. But this meant there were a few places where character’s motivations, especially Paul’s, were confusing. He sometimes seems to hold opposing opinions of things based on what that scene is calling for. He spends a good chunk of the movie refusing to go into the deep, southern desert, because he has horrible visions about what that will set in motion. However, when the movie needs him to do it, he does an about face pretty quickly (I had to see the movie a second time to even realize why he does it. There is a little scene tucked in there that explains it, but even then, it didn’t feel earned).
My other misgiving was similar to the first movie; it leaves too much of the great Dune lore on the table. However, this isn’t necessarily a bug; it can be a feature. Villeneuve obviously learned from Lynch, knew he couldn’t get every amazing detail of Herbert’s books in there. So he chooses certain places to get into the story. For example, the mentat Thurfir Hawat’s scenes were all cut from Part Two because Villeneuve chose to focus on the Bene Gesserits instead. The whole war of the machines and the planet Ix and the mentats are pretty much left behind. As much as this is disappointing to an old Dunehead like me, it is a necessary sacrifice that translates to more of the general audience understanding the story.
Dune: Part Two is a beast of a movie. It’s an exciting action spectacle, but it has things to say about love, religious fundamentalism, war, and family. Like Chris Nolan, Denis Villeneuve is a Kwisatz Haderach, separating himself from the pack, showing us not only the depths of his own focus and talent, but what that can mean for the movies. And if Paul Muad’dib Usul Atreides can come from the desert to change the universe, then maybe filmmakers like these can electrify film once more.
Director Denis Villeneuve with Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin
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