"Dune: Part Two" — The road to greatness begins in the desert
“May thy knife chip and shatter.”
When we last saw Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides, he and his mother, Lady Jessica, were wandering the wastelands of the desert planet Arrakis, also known as “Dune,” with the Fremen, the planet’s indigenous population. His father was betrayed and murdered by the Emperor, his family home was destroyed, his armies slaughtered, and his whole world was utterly crushed. But all this chaos brings Paul closer to his ultimate destiny. Burdened by his birthright as heir to the Atreides Dukedom and his future as the prophesied Kwisatz Haderach who will bring about peace to the galaxy, Paul’s new Fremen community may just provide him with the tools needed to exact his revenge and take on his mystical role. In Part One, Paul functions as a rather static, “let the plot just happen to me” sort of protagonist who is more of a victim, a cog in the machine, rather than someone forging his own way forward. But here, he begins a path towards radical transformation and a new future for the galaxy: and it all begins in the desert.
For a long time, Frank Herbert’s legendary 1965 epic sci-fi novel Dune had held the reputation of being “unfilmable” thanks to the numerous attempts to adapt the novel to the screen. Many filmmakers failed to get an adaptation off its feet. David Lynch managed to direct a film version of the tale, which was reviled by most critics (and Lynch himself) and bombed at the box office. There was a made-for-television limited series in the early 2000s, now long forgotten to the mists of the TV wasteland. What Denis Villeneuve’s first critically acclaimed Dune film proved is that the novel could live on the screen. In fact, it thrives there. With Dune: Part Two, Villeneuve wraps up the first novel’s story with a film just as spectacularly conceived, richly developed, and beautifully realized as its predecessor. Embracing the out-there weirdness of Frank Herbert’s original novel, this brutalist-infused, moody, and complicated sci-fi epic is a masterwork. Part Two ups the spectacle with breathtaking visuals, grand emotional beats, and a ferocious conclusion to this struggle for Arrakis.
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| Rebecca Ferguson in Dune: Part Two. Photo via Warner Bros. |
In a hidden Fremen encampment in the middle of the deep desert, Paul (played by Timothée Chalamet) begins his journey to his prophesied messianic role. He’s found himself living with the people of Sietch Tabr, one of the Fremen’s many underground encampments scattered across the planet. He begins to take on their way of life, learn their language, fight like them and lead raids against Arrakis’ overlords, take a Fremen name, earn their trust, gain the legendary blue-and-blue eyes of their specific diet, and, eventually, learn to ride one of the great sandworms. Or, in the Fremen language, Shai Hulud. Chalamet’s performance is distinctly stronger here than it was in Part One, creating a vision of Paul that feels like a classical tragic hero in the vein of Sophocles or Euripides. Paul is under the influence of his mother, Lady Jessica (played by Rebecca Ferguson), a member of the Bene Gesserit, a secretive all-female religious order. Jessica makes another fierce transformation from her role in the first film. Ferguson’s characterization has her leaning into a more malicious presence over the story. She’s caught up in her own schemes and machinations that make her very distinctly her own player in the story.
Stilgar (played by Javier Bardem), Sietch Tabr’s leader and a devotee to the Fremen’s ancient religious practices, begins to note the overlap between the arrival of the outworlder stranger and the prophesied Lisan al Gaib, the “Voice from the Outer World,” who will lead the Fremen to freedom. While Bardem’s role in the first film was quite limited to being the stoic leader of the dangerous Fremen, we see a lot more of his character here. He becomes a character of levity, never quite “comic relief,” but much more jovial than the other characters in the story. By Paul’s side as his confidant, a voice of reason, and his love interest is Chani (played by Zendaya), a Fremen warrior who fears the sort of person Paul might become as the Lisan al Gaib. While Jessica, Paul, Chani, and the Fremen come to an alliance, their motivations and aspirations are so distinct that the viewer cannot help but imagine what horrors will befall these characters from the inevitable infighting.
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| Javier Bardem in Dune: Part Two. Photo via Warner Bros. |
Meanwhile, across the galaxy, on the black-and-white coloured planet of Geidi Prime, House Atreides’ most bitter foes, House Harkonnen, are gathering strength after regaining control of Arrakis and, by extent, its valuable supplies of the spice melange. Stellan Skarsgård returns as the grotesque Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, who rules his house with a sadistic, twisted fist. He’s accompanied by Dave Bautista’s Beast Raban, another returning villainous face, who’s keeping an ever-weakening grip on Arrakis and the increasingly bold acts of rebellion from the Fremen. Here, we witness the arrival of Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen (played by Austin Butler), the Baron’s nephew, who spends his entire time on screen chewing as much scenery as humanly possible. Butler’s performance is sufficiently twisted and perverse, embodying an evil that feels like it’s simmering under the surface of this universe. The world itself is just as unsettling and inhuman as the brutal Harkonnens themselves. Using colour-inverted infrared photography, the daylight, outdoor Geidi Prime-set sequences border on the uncanny. In a world where there are no alien races populating the galaxy, Villeneuve emphasizes how alien humans have become as their new cultures gestate across the stars, with the design of the natural environments and architecture embodying it.
Elsewhere, ruling from the peaceful work of Kaitan, Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV (played by Christopher Walken), tries to hold the whole universe in the palm of his hand. But this Emperor is burdened by deep insecurity. He’s not a particularly majestic ruler, not even bothering to keep up the public appearance of being someone of great respect. He’s characterized here as a weak and easily swayed ruler, who holds onto power through a desperate sense of self-preservation. Florence Pugh’s Princess Irulan, the Emperor’s daughter, sits by his side, feeding her disquiet feelings about her father’s slipping power in a private journal. Irulan feels like the only character who is not quite given the proper development here, although with the promise of greater things to come in a potential sequel. It’s not as if Pugh’s talents are wasted here, however. She still manages to make the role her own and a force with purpose in the narrative. She does not feel quite as fully realized as some of the film’s most exciting characters (a potential Villeneuve-directed Dune Messiah would promise a much more thorough and expansive arc for the character).
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| Austin Butler in Dune: Part Two. Photo via Warner Bros. |
All these violent opposing forces — House Atreides House Harkonnen, House Corrino, the Fremen, and the Bene Gesserit — come together in a cataclysmic showdown that shakes the foundations of this far-flung future universe. With significantly more action than its predecessor, Part Two finds the ideal blend of its spectacle and its strong character beats, with Villeneuve crafting a very emotionally and aesthetically well-rounded experience. “This is only the beginning,” remarked Chani at the end of the first film. And this somewhat meta-textual assertion from the character was proven right: Villeneuve had plenty more tricks up his sleeve for the sequel. The French-Canadian filmmaker, who’s also known for his films Blade Runner 2049 (2017), Arrival (2016), and Prisoners (2013), expands beautifully upon the first Dune adventure with a cunning and clever film.
While it provides the viewer with glimpses of life beyond the desert, most of the film’s action remains on Arrakis with Paul’s journey from sheltered nobleman’s son to legendary hero taking up most of its runtime. Cinematographer Greig Fraser’s sand-covered landscapes evoke so much depth out of the barren vistas. The integration of the live-action and digitally created elements is just as beautiful and organic as the first film. The careful attention to detail in the cinematography, visual effects, colour correction, and editing is astounding. Each environment, planet, culture, and set piece are so carefully realized, immersing the viewer in a universe that feels ancient, like there’s history around every corner. It’s a film so technically beautiful that it sends the entire business of blockbuster filmmaking into a spiral of identity. “Why can’t all blockbusters look this good?”
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| Zendaya and Timothée Chalamet in Dune: Part Two. Photo via Warner Bros. |
The film isn’t all just visual pizzaz, however. Villeneuve and co-writer Jon Spaihts’ scripting and structuring are particularly excellent here. The film manages to pull off the tremendous act of being both a natural second half to the story started two-and-a-half years ago as well as an invigorating stand-alone epic. The character writing is deft and clever. Even small roles are written with detail, giving even players with little screentime — like Léa Seydoux’s Lady Margot Fenring — depth and complicated motivations. The film is not only unafraid of the strangeness inherent to its world, treating it with the respect it needs to be taken seriously, but it also embraces the novel’s detailed themes. Its critiques of imperialism, religious fanaticism, and hero figures are as strong as in the original text. In many ways, these are even more apparent here, with Villeneuve having hindsight already of what will happen in the future to the Atreides family in the sequel novels.
Dune: Part Two plays out like an epic revenge tragedy of antiquity, including all the prophesy, murder, royal politics, and family drama. There’s an essential timeless quality that holds the film together, making its future-set politics feel like the dramas humans have been telling for centuries. It exists on the crux of being futuristic and incredibly primal. And, like an ancient tragedy, Dune won’t give its audience an easy or comforting conclusion. But the impression that the film leaves its audience with will be utterly unforgettable. Burning with righteous anger, the viewer is whisked into a riotous sci-fi adventure with gorgeous visuals, incredible performances, detailed worldbuilding, and a complicated, heavy narrative. While Paul is certainly not the hero we would want him to be, one cannot help but feel compelled to join in the chants of “Lisan al Gaib!” This is a film that needs to be seen to be believed.
Dune: Part Two is now playing in theatres.
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