‘Dune: Part Two’ review: Bigger, bolder, spicier

Directed by Denis Villeneuve, Dune: Part Two is the epic payoff fans of the novel have been waiting to see for decades.

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Did we really expect anything less? The only major issue I can even find with Dune: Part Two, at least on its own terms, is that we had to sit through all of Dune: Part One just to get to the movie Denis Villeneuve actually wanted to make. It’s uncanny what a difference a sci-fi film with the gumption for honest-to-Paul set-up and payoff can do in the age of anti-sci-fi cinema.

As Dune: Part Two kicked off, the book-by-Frank-Herbert-reader in me who found Part One to be a pretty picture with bland writing couldn’t help but spiral with doubt and uncertainty. What am I supposed to feel when I look at Paul Atreides, played once again by brood-core afficionado Timothée Chalamet, the rich outcast forced into a Dances with Wolves meets Avatar meets The Lion King type situation? (Herbert published the book in 1965, to be clear). How do I unironically watch Paul struggle and scrap his way into the trust of a wary desert tribe of “Fremen” (free men, get it?) led by Javier Bardem’s Stilgar, who insists Paul’s their white savior messiah figure and all that.

Am I supposed to root for this kid dressed neck to toe in rubbery plot armor? Am I supposed to clap when he hooks up with Zendaya’s Chani, who watches him suspiciously at first but of course grows to love him?

“It’s been a while since you’ve had one of those nightmares.”

Well, then Villeneuve swings in with, at last, a message worth grasping onto. Paul knows he’s a white savior in this middle-east-sci-fi and doesn’t just resist it, he both resents its shady origins and finds himself suckered into it all the same. He can’t help it. The mechanics of storytelling must appease the demands of the masses. By using his own manufactured mythic status to control others. Brilliant.

For a long time, Villeneuve’s pretty much been at war with sentiment, and with Dune: Part Two, it’s like he finally found the story that can communicate why that is. He found the story that adapts to the times while still faithfully adapting the source material, because it’s subtly self-aware about its own groan-worthy, tiresome implications. Even the iconic sandworms get their full due.

“This is a form of power our world has not yet seen.”

Villeneuve penned this one with Jon Spaihts, and the duo certainly lucked out when Part One was just successful enough (on HBO Max) for Warner Bros. to let them go ahead and make a second (and maybe a third? Honestly, they could end it here just fine or keep going, either works). Many have already pointed out sand-nauseam about how hard it is to adapt Dune into a movie, with both Alejandro Jodorowsky and David Lynch each failing in their own spectacular ways.

Now we live in an age of seemingly limitless computer effects where we can actually expect sprawling imagination to keep up with technological constraints. But let’s be real. The differentiator for Denis Villeneuve in this regard is that he doesn’t treat CGI like a bandaid, he looks at it as an art form unto itself. The man and his team truly get that you still actually have to make the world (digital or not) look and feel and sound like it has some creative gravitas.

“What we do, we do for the benefit of all.”

Sure, Hans Zimmer’s score overplays itself to the point of (slight) diminishing returns. Entire stretches of the film are essentially incoherent if you try to analyze them only from the dialogue. And we spend an inordinate amount of time in this 167-minute movie watching people silently moving around a desert planet with blue determination in their eyes and a chip or two on their shoulders, maybe even breathing huffily. But thanks to Villeneuve’s mastery of visual storytelling, complete with Greig Fraser’s unstoppable ability as DP to make science fiction look like a perfect blend of both science and fiction (see not just the last Dune, but also The Creator); well, you end up with a proper step forward for spectacle blockbuster filmmaking that can come out in March, November, May, December, whatever you want.

The film doesn’t just raise the stakes of its blistering hero-messiah story. It expands the world/galaxy/universe with a heightened sense of who these people really are and what they want. Dave Bautista and Stellan Skarsgård return as the brutish, conniving villains, but the film almost immediately pushes them to the side with the arrival of Austin Butler as their deranged, younger family member, who actually commands a big chunk of the film all to himself in order to effectively set up his ruthless, yet complex makeup (in more ways than one).

“I see possible futures, all at once.”

We also see Florence Pugh, Christopher Walken, Charlotte Rampling, and Léa Seydoux receive imperial politicking roles that do well to put the events happening in Arrakis within a plausible framework that adds much-needed urgency and context to how Paul’s actions steadily affect the outer worlds.

Even Rebecca Ferguson, who bristles early on in this film when it comes to her exact role in this story, blossoms into a bonafide force of Reverend Mother nature that does well to capitalize on her ability to mix vulnerability with savage confidence. Pretty much how I always envisioned Mother Mary, myself.

The bottom line.

On the one hand, you can maybe argue that audiences “aren’t prepared for what’s to come.” But that’s not entirely true. Part One certainly laid the necessary groundwork, and in some ways, the previous attempts at a Dune adaptation also set the stage in their meta-ways. The most exciting thing about Dune: Part Two isn’t even the movie itself, it’s the audacity of a filmmaker to stick the landing and effectively lay out a blueprint for how other seemingly “unmakeable” sci-fi novels can be culture-defining movies (not just TV shows, great as some are). And it goes beyond special effects and spine-chilling music. Sci-fi has to start with a message that is equal parts smart, biting, and maybe even a little full of itself.

Dune: Part Two opens in theaters March 1. Watch the trailer here.

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Images courtesy of Warner Bros. Read more articles by Jon Negroni here.