I shan’t bury the lede: Dune: Part Two is awesome. It’s not just vastly superior to Dune: Part One - it’s so good it makes Dune: Part One better retroactively. I implore you to see this movie in theaters, on the biggest screen possible; the timely, heartbreaking thematics may not lose anything on streaming, but the movie is also a jaw-dropping spectacle, the likes of which no television, tablet, or computer monitor will ever be able to do justice.
It must be said that the second half of Frank Herbert’s seminal science-fiction novel likely lends itself more easily to cinematic adaptation than the first half, which was covered in Dune: Part One - the set-up is out of the way, so now we get to the real juicy stuff… to say nothing of the fact that, in many ways, this part of the story takes the basic shape of a revenge narrative.
But there’s also a sense that returning director Denis Villeneuve feels more confident in his own abilities this time out. Dune: Part Two takes greater liberties with the source material than its predecessor, cutting out entire subplots and supporting characters, but it also feels more coherent; there’s no equivalent to the unsatisfying, half-assed version of Dr. Yueh here, because Villeneuve has bravely dispensed with any elements he doesn’t have time to fully explore. He has made a stupendous movie inspired by a stupendous book, not a live action CliffsNotes that is ostensibly a stupendous book on fast-forward.
Perhaps because the first film was a hit, Villeneuve is also more brazen with the psychedelic aspects of Herbert’s saga: parts of the story involve a pregnant woman who can have conversations with the baby growing inside her, and yes, he does frequently take us inside the woman’s womb to see the fetus itself. It’s undeniably bizarre, but where many filmmakers would likely try to downplay this component of the plot, Villeneuve trusts that the audience will go along with it.
(Let’s pause here to acknowledge that some will inevitably interpret this to be an argument for the personhood of the fetus. But that is, frankly, bullshit. Mother and fetus are only able to communicate here because the mother has ingested a drug that she was specifically not meant to take while pregnant. In other words, that the fetus has consciousness is an outlier even in this fantastical world; Villeneuve is not making an anti-choice argument.)
Once again co-written by Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts, Dune: Part Two picks up immediately after the events of Dune: Part One: trapped on the economically-crucial desert planet of Arrakis, Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and his mother, Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), have evaded assassination by their rivals, House Harkonnen, and are taken in by the planet’s Indigenous peoples, the Fremen. Some of the Fremen, like the devoutly religious Stilgar (Javier Bardem), believe that Paul is Lisan al Gaib, or the Kwisatz Haderach, a prophesied messiah who will free Arrakis from imperial rule and once again make the planet a lush paradise; others, like Chani (Zendaya), are more skeptical, if not outright hostile. Paul gradually proves his worth, joins the Fremen freedom fighters, begins a romance with Chani, and leads a rebellion against both the Harkonnens and the Emperor (Christopher Walken) who surreptitiously had his father and allies murdered; Jessica becomes a religious leader, and uses her newfound influence to spread propaganda bolstering Paul; and the Emperor and House Harkonnen work to squash the rebellion once and for all, lest it disrupt the harvesting of a spice, melange, which can only be found on Arrakis and is every bit as essential to the characters in this world as oil is to us in our world
The hiccup in all of this - to profoundly understate the matter - is that Paul has oracular visions of a future in which he has risen to power, resulting in a devastating holy war that will leave billions dead in his name. Paul spends most of the movie attempting to be the leader the Fremen need without becoming the genocidal despot he sees in his visions; the tragic arc of events, however, makes it seem increasingly unlikely that he’ll be able to have his spice and eat it, too.
This is largely what elevates Dune: Part Two above all the films and books that have “borrowed” from Herbert’s novel in the sixty years since it was published. Dune: Part Two denies the audience the satisfaction of simple good guys vs. bad guys morality or heroic triumphalism. Dune: Part One opens with a basso, didgeridoo-like voice telling us that “Dreams are messages from the deep,” which initially seems like an optimistic message; Dune: Part Two opens with that same voice conveying the considerably more cynical directive, “He who controls the spice controls the universe.” This is actually a quote from the film’s villain, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård), and what we know now that we didn’t know at the start of Dune: Part One is that the voice is speaking in the language of the Emperor’s viciously violent fighting force, the Sardaukar. We are firmly no longer in the territory of traditional Hollywood heroics.
In fact, Villeneuve excels at exploiting the tension between righteousness and impiety at every turn. The Shai-Hulud - 1,300 foot sandworms that create melange and are used by Paul and the Fremen as both chariots and weapons - make a clicking sound that is nearly identical to the one emitted by the machines Baron Harkonnen uses to levitate his obese body, creating a (perhaps unconscious) connection between the protagonists and the antagonists. When Jessica tells Paul that his murdered father (Oscar Isaac) “didn’t believe in revenge,” he replies calmly, “Well, I do.” Moments that most films would play as a crowd-pleasing comeuppance are tossed away, deliberately rendered anti-climactic and devoid of glory. Paul and his allies make ethically questionable decisions, and the Harkonnens are shown to be both vile and pitiable, produced by an endless cycle of cruelty and fear and trauma and all the awful elements we know help to create tyrants in real life.
The moral fog that permeates the narrative makes Dune: Part Two a truly epic emotional cataclysm, more akin to The Godfather than Star Wars. This is a fantasy film even people who normally don’t care for fantasy films will appreciate, like Game of Thrones if Game of Thrones had actually nailed the dismount.
The other reason Dune: Part Two is so goddamn great is that Villeneuve’s collaborators almost all hit grand slams. Chalamet and Zendaya still look like they’re in high school, and yet they succeed in conjuring the weightiness their roles require; Chalamet is especially impressive, rendering Paul’s ascent to power both exhilarating and terrifying (once again, Michael Corleone comes to mind). Stilgar might have been a somewhat one-note character whose part amounts to little more than a devout cheerleader, but Bardem makes the role surprisingly funny (I don’t remember Stilgar being so droll in the novel). The only returning cast member who gets the short shrift is Josh Brolin as the warrior Gurney Halleck, because a fairly major part of his subplot from the book has understandably been left out of this adaptation.
The new additions to the troupe, on the whole, do not fare quite as well. While it’s reassuring to know that the eventual Emperor of the universe will hail from Queens, Walken is more subdued here than he’s ever been in the past, and Florence Pugh, playing his daughter, has to get by on her overwhelming charisma alone. Ditto Léa Seydoux, who shows up briefly as a seductress with ulterior political motives (and whose uncle, Michel Seydoux, was a producer on Alejandro Jodorowsky’s unproduced adaption of the book).
On the other hand, Austin Butler truly shines as the Baron Harkonnen’s nephew and heir, Feyd-Rautha. Butler’s star has been rising fast since he starred in Baz Luhrmann Elvis two years ago, and, frankly, I haven’t understood the hype until now. Expertly mimicking Skarsgård’s accent and vocal mannerisms, Butler manages to convey the character’s ruthless sadism without chewing the scenery; when he’s still, he’s unsettling, and when he’s stirred, he’s goddamn terrifying. I don’t know if audiences will misinterpret the character as being “cool” the way they have so many other iconic pop culture antagonists (Darth Vader, Joker, etc.), but I personally found him to be “cool” only in the most literal sense - by which I mean, he’s absolutely chilling. He makes the audience feel Paul’s ethical dilemma in their bones, because even though we don’t want to see an intergalactic genocide come to pass, we definitely do not want to see Feyd-Rautha take the throne. Butler even makes it seem kinda plausible that he might be able to physically overpower his older brother, Rabban, even though Rabban is played by former professional wrestler Dave Baustista, who in real life would likely squash Butler like a gnat.
The behind-the-camera creative team - which includes cinematographer Greg Fraser, editor Joe Walker, production designer Patrice Vermette, costume designer Jacqueline West, visual effect supervisor Paul Lambert, and composer Hans Zimmer - is just as impressive. The picture is bursting at the seams with indelible imagery that utilizes unique aesthetic choices (on the Harkonnen’s home planet, fireworks appear as aqueous explosions of ink in the sky) and expertly blends CGI and practical movie magic (I never would have imagined that a film could truly make you feel the thrill of riding a sandworm the way this one does). The movie is nearly three-hours-long, but I could have spent days lost in the singular world Villeneuve has created.
There’s much, much more to be said to about Dune: Part Two, but I’ll reserve further gushing for the future, after people have had a chance to see the movie. Suffice it to say, like last year’s Oppenheimer and Barbie, Dune: Part Two reminds us of the potential value in large-scale Hollywood studio filmmaking. It’s not another disposable blockbuster of the week; it’s an awe-inspiring monument to the power of imagination and the ways in which genre can help us process real-world issues. Mark my words… we will be talking about Dune: Part Two for years to come.