Like Paul Atreidis (Timothee Chalamet) trekking the sands of Arrakis and navigating the beautiful landscapes, Dennis Villeneuve invites the viewer into his sandbox to transport us into the luscious world of Dune. Very few filmmakers are given the tools and capabilities to create vividly realized images and moments that impress the viewer with how transportive cinema can be. And even then, only a select group of filmmakers are accomplished enough to utilize those tools appropriately. Between his first Dune (2021) and Dune: Part Two (2023), it’s clear how much Villeneuve is passionate about realizing the vast worlds and narrative lore of Frank Herbert’s novels. He joins the ranks of James Cameron, Peter Jackson, and George Lucas (to name a few) who have a firm grasp of world-building and constructing sprawling stories with an ensemble of characters that feel cogent and overwhelming to the senses.
Part Two takes the heavy lifting the first film managed in the immense set-up of its core cast of players and pits them in a much enormous backdrop that sadly loses them in the spectacle of Villeneuve’s epic filmmaking. Themes are present; concepts are fleshed out—no doubt both Villeneuve and co-writer Jon Spaihts wanted to delve more into Paul’s rise to power the first film heavily (and to its detriment) bluntly emphasized through flash-forwards. The emotional beats come in waves, and characters speak eloquently in a stilted manner leaving little room for interpretation.
While Dune felt burdened by establishing numerous plot tangents and character developments, Part Two is marginally successful in realizing the entrenched political chess game of Herbert’s lore and the epic scale of its world-building, but through underdeveloped relationships and sterile, perfunctory story beats, the film lacks the grit and emotional gravitas that it feels it has earned by the end. There’s a lopsided manner in connecting both films as one adaptation that imbues Part Two with a hollowness focused on being bigger and grander but lacking the delicate nuance and dimensionality of Herbert’s characters.
Part Two picks up with the House of Harkonnen continuing its pillaging of Arrakis, eliminating remaining Attreides fighters, and battling Fremon resistance as they ramp up their spice harvesting. Amidst the battle set-pieces, we focus on Paul acclimating himself to the Fremon way of life, as he learns how to avoid the many perils of the desert and its giant sandworms and eventually earn the trust of the Fremon people. This comes in the form of a romantic relationship he develops with Chani (Zendaya), who despite her attraction doesn’t believe in the prophecy that Paul and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), will bring balance and prosperity to Arrakis by seizing power over the other houses.
A good portion of Part Two is the back-and-forth mind-game of Paul and Jessica arriving as outsiders and navigating the many religious and non-religious subsets of Fremon that are conflicted in relenting down to outside saviors, yet Stilgar (Javier Bardem) is adamant that Paul will free the Fremon people. Meanwhile, Baron Vladimir (Stellan Skarsgard) tasks his psychopathic nephew, Feyd-Ruautha (Austin Butler), to take out Paul’s rise to power and prevent the Fremon insurgency from becoming too powerful.
For as much story and characters compact this epic runtime, Villeneuve envelopes the audience in a world of fiery combat and moral ambiguity. Oscar-winning cinematographer Greg Fraser returns, and the film is gorgeous. Every single scent of its budget was spent on creating this luscious world of Arrakis and realizing the detailed technology of Herbert’s novels. Villeneuve aims for the broad epic scale of Lawrence of Arabia (1962) as wide shots of the dunes feel transportive and engulf every frame of this deliciously formed science fiction tale.
Production Designers Zsuzanna Sipos and Patrice Vermette return to construct a world mostly composed of caves and sands that feel lived in with a history that feeds into the religiosity and long-standing history of the Fremon and Arrakis. For every explosive action scene or a wide shot of Fremon riding a sandworm in pristine fashion, the storytelling is rooted in the mind game of Paul denying his pre-determined role as the savior of Arrakis. A pregnant Lady Jessica endears herself as the Fremon’s Reverend Mother, which grants her a religious stature, as she drinks the Water of Life and inherits memories of her female ancestry.
The film directs Jessica to the South of Arrakis to unite the more religiously devout fundamentalists in joining the North’s conquest over the Harkonnen army. The narrative drills into the notion of manipulating faith and belief in people to command their propensity for a messiah to free them of their suffering, and how far that type of orchestration comes at the expense of becoming another ruler with far more concerns than freeing the Fremon.
Ferguson is phenomenal as a Bene Gesserit sister who can say so much with a glance look and have her interiority independent of the film’s events. There’s a fierce intensity and calmness to Ferguson that allows a level of unpredictable nature as her endgame is far different from anyone in the film. Every scene in which she can command the screen is the film’s greatest special effect, as her captivating presence infuses the film with enough curiosity and oddness as if she lept out of Herbert’s pages.
Alongside Ferguson is another talented veteran in the form of Bardem’s devout fanatic willing to die at Paul’s hands. Bardem is exceptional, a man worn out by war and kept alive because of his deep faith in a messiah, even when Chani vehemently disparages Paul and Jessica’s role with the Fremon. There’s a humorous undercurrent to Bardem’s deadpan delivery with enough charm and warmth for Paul, as he helps teach him the Fremon ways.
Speaking of Paul, it’s a tough role that requires a lot of internalized anguish of a child who’s lost his father, Duke Leto Attreides (Oscar Isaac), has to learn to be a Fremon fighter and deny his eventual fate of being an outside leader to the Fremon. Chalamet’s performance builds on his storied development to now struggling with becoming Lisan al Gaib, the Messiah of Arrakis while remaining a fighter for the Fremon and being with Chani. His emotional warmth is explored with Chani, yet their romance is lackluster and simplified. The writing is hurried to get these two handsome actors to be gooey-eyed with each other, but their personalities and beliefs never conflict in a meaningful way until the third act. It’s scenes like theirs where the writing has a strained, forced impression of two people falling in love rather than a natural organic flow of a relationship forming.
Chalamet is far more fascinating in his scenes with Bardem or Ferguson, as he steers and slithers his way through their expectations to a pulsating moment that finds him in the house of the Fundementlaists and makes the decision to become a warrior to fight alongside or an icon to be worshipped. It’s moments like these where Paul Atreides has to decide if he accepts his role as the messiah that feels recognized by Chalamet’s capabilities of injecting a presence of uncertainty masked by confident leadership.
Austin Butler’s Feyd is a failed addition, as he’s introduced in a monochrome black-and-white sequence to exhibit an overstated cruel and sadistic nature of relentless killing (both enemies and assistants), as he’s directed to chew scenery and leaves no room for ambiguity. This is a villain meant to invoke fear and dread. Yet, the performance feels slight, being introduced so late in the film that it detracts from the gross, slimy and ruthless nature of Baron who is reduced to an ineffectual ball of fat. Butler is fine in the few scenes he occupies, but his direction nearly borders on comical, as he sleeves a blade down in his tongue to demonstrate his sickness, it feels inorganic and is meant to add stakes to a story that is beyond the sword fight that ends with Paul and Feyd having a showdown by the end.
Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh), a Bene Gesserit sister narrating in her journals and pondering Paul’s fate, and the daughter of Paddish Emperor Shaddam IV (Christopher Walken), learns her role in the war of Atreides and Harkonnen, and the political betrayal and backstabbing involved. Both actors suffer from the fate of the first film, being introduced and hoping they will seemingly pay off in future installments. Pugh signifies another hidden portion of the narrative that involves how powerful and omnipresent the Bene Gesserit are in terms of political machinations and deriding power through manipulation and pre-determined visions. Irulan’s reluctance in Gaius Helen Mohiam’s (Charlotte Rampling) plan to insert themselves in every crevice of possible power and control is a welcome change to Jessica’s craving for maniacal control over the Fremon. It seems, by the end, Irulan will have a much bigger impact on Paul’s journey beyond the sands of Arrakis. Meanwhile, Walken conveys an old weariness that sadly dissipates as soon as he talks, bringing in the classic Walken speak many would feel distracting in a world full of weird dissonance sounds.
Denis Villeneuve is one of the few filmmakers in Hollywood able to command studio filmmaking on a scale this detailed and mature. The spectacle and action help serve the dense plate of religious politics, power-wielding, and orchestrating faith to an icon—it’s evident that the movie industry needs artists like Villeneuve. His undetermined focus on storytelling matches the mouthwatering visuals throughout his filmography. Audiences have been craving movies on the scale of Dune: Part Two, a monumental fantasy that seeks to probe and entertain and a blockbuster that reaches for the stars.
Perhaps it doesn’t entirely work in terms of conveying the deep, but it’s inspiring to see filmmakers like Villeneuve able to thrive and continue the legacy of accomplished directors before him and emphasize the cinematic experience. It’s clear Villeneuve has his sights matched for a third entry in Dune: The Messiah; by the time the last frame of Part Two closes in Chani’s disappointed eyes of betrayal—as she waits to ride a worm into the sunset—there’s far more to Paul and the Fremon’s quest to overthrow the various houses enclosing on Arrakis. Whether that proves to be a satisfying conclusion that can come close to Herbert’s long book series remains to be seen, but it no doubt leaves us wanting more. When a group of talented artists, actors, and expert technicians that range from the deep bench of brilliant sound designers, Hanz Zimmer’s sensational scoring, and the gifted special effects artist come together to create populist art that is explorative and deeply mindful, how can you not partake in the spice?
Review Courtesy of Amritpal Rai
Feature Image Credit to Warner Bros via The LA Times
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