DUNE: PART TWO (2024)
Starring Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista, Christopher Walken, Léa Seydoux, Stellan Skarsgård, Charlotte Rampling, Javier Bardem, Souheila Yacoub, Anya Taylor-Joy, Roger Yuan, Babs Olusanmokun, Alison Halstead, Giusi Merli, Kait Tenison, Tara Breathnach and Akiko Hitomi.
Screenplay by Denis Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts.
Directed by Denis Villeneuve.
Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. 167 minutes. Rated PG-13.
I have to admit I have never quite gotten the Dune phenomenon, from when I was a teen and read the book by Frank Herbert and being kind of underwhelmed by it, or from when I saw David Lynch’s horrible 1984 movie version. Therefore, I went into Denis Villeneuve’s version of the book a few years ago, with relatively low expectations, particularly since not only was I not a huge fan of Dune, but I’ve also always felt Villeneuve was a technically proficient but rather cold director who is better at creating worlds than he is at telling stories.
Therefore, I was relatively pleasantly surprised by the 2021 version of Dune. It was gorgeously filmed (no big surprise, that is Villeneuve’s strong point), and while it was a little slow, a little too fascinated with the politics of this world and way too long, and it ended right in the middle of a scene, in general I was impressed by the movie.
However, two-and-a-half years have passed, and honestly when I was getting ready to see Dune: Part Two, I realized that I barely remembered a thing about the first film. The movie had blown away in my mind like spice in a sandstorm. I had to rewatch Dune a few days before the screening just to remember what had happened. Again I had basically the same reaction to the first viewing: stunningly filmed, but a bit slow, and way too long.
Well, Dune: Part Two is even longer than that film – just a bit under three hours long. However, no one will ever accuse it of being slow. Dune: Part Two is where the storyline ramps up (it’s basically based on the second half of the book) and while it is still occasionally a bit clunky and stiff, for the most part it’s an impressive act of sci-fi spectacle.
Dune: Part Two takes off from where the last film ended – the Harkonnen House has slaughtered the Atreides family. The two surviving members of the house – Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) and son Paul (Timothee Chalamet) – are on the run in the desert, hiding out with the local Fremen tribe. They all work together to avenge the Atreides and vanquish the Harkonnens, as well as the Emperor (Christopher Walken) who betrayed the family. In the meantime Paul befriends and eventually falls for beautiful Fremen fighter Chani (Zendaya).
Cue lots of stunning (if occasionally redundant) battle sequences. The armature of Dune is an odd mix of futuristic and old-fashioned – they have spaceships, submachine guns and atomic warheads, and yet most of the fighting is done in hand-to-hand combat with swords. (This probably can be explained by the age of the source material; the novel was originally published in 1965.)
It occasionally gets a bit overwhelming, but credit where it is due, it is often pretty spectacular. And yes, again, the film sort of ends in the middle of a fight sequence – although this film has a much more concrete climax than the last one – so no doubt we’ll have to wait another two or three years to find out what happens next. (After all, Herbert wrote six Dune novels, there is lots of story left to go.)
This time around I expect I’ll remember it a lot better when the next film comes down the pike.
Jay S. Jacobs
Copyright ©2024 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: March 1, 2024.