You get the impression that Denis Villeneuve has spent his entire life seeing images inspired by spices. The director has frequently discussed how reading Frank Herbert’s Dune as a young child opened his perspective. In a very real sense, his life’s labor has been bringing the sci-fi tome’s intoxicating combination of warring houses, hallucinogenic reveries, anti-colonialist sentiments, and cosmic action to the screen. Once more, it appears as though the pictures Herbert created in Villeneuve’s mind all those years ago are being torn straight from synapses to screens in Dune: Part Two.
It’s almost miraculous that Part Two comes at all. The director took a chance on a two-part adaptation of the novel, even if a sequel was not a given. The startling first portion, which Villeneuve acknowledged was a place-setter that would be paid off in later installments, debuted in the middle of Covid. As anticipated, Part Two is the war epic; it’s a heavier, more muscular chapter with less world-building to do but more complex story beats to work out.
Rewatching Part One is recommended, but Florence Pugh’s arrival as Princess Irulan serves mainly as a recap-voiceover. It picks up shortly after the conclusion of Part One, with Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and his expectant mother Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) being accepted into the Fremen, the indigenous people of bone-dry Arrakis. Paul wants to exact revenge on everyone who harmed him after he managed to escape the horrific Harkonnens’ killing of House Atreides, which was orchestrated by Emperor Shaddam IV, a surprisingly well-behaved Christopher Walken. Paul’s mother Jessica is one of the Bene Gesserit, space witch meddlers who deliberately laid down the prophecies that many Fremen, including leader Stilgar (Javier Bardem), believe Paul could be the “Lisan al-Gaib,” a prophet in their religion. Paul’s Spice-visions also show him possible futures in which relying on his contrived messianic “destiny” leads to unending bloodshed. In the meantime, Paul develops feelings for Fremen fighter Chani (Zendaya, who finally gets some screen time after a brief appearance in Part One), and their developing romance is hampered by, well, everything mentioned above.
The ambition is Middle-earthhian, and the dramatic intensity of its execution is reminiscent of Nolan.
To put it succinctly, a lot of things are going on, and Villeneuve manages to keep most of them under control. Beyond that, he crafts breathtaking sequences that will have you screaming in fear. For example, the opening attack by the gravity-defying Harkonnen warriors is terrifying; the ragtag rocket-launch mission, in which Paul and Chani take down enemy ornithopters, is heart-stopping; and Paul’s much-awaited first ride on the sandworm, an incredible feat of sound and vision with thunderous bass that will transform any ordinary movie theater into a spine-tingling 4DX experience. Austin Butler, the Harkonnen warrior-boy Feyd-Rautha (the Anti-Paul in every way), is the most impressive of the newcomers. He is the hairless personification of complete inhumanity. The action is mostly staged in Arrakis, so his stark arena battle on a far-off planet—rendered totally monochrome under a black sun that leeches all color, the sky exploding in Rorschach blotches—is a nice diversion.
If the first part wasn’t explicit enough, this is Middle-earthhian ambition with a dramatic intensity reminiscent of Christopher Nolan. Part Two is almost too epic, if you will. It is an enormous movie, and despite all the human development Villeneuve does (Paul’s naming ceremony; the most sand-based flirtation in a space opera since, well, another well-known Episode II), there comes a moment when the sheer enormity of the thing overwhelms the viewer. It simply keeps moving after reaching a critical mass and a terminal velocity of grandeur. There’s a lot of material to cover despite the two films being split, including enigmatic story issues that even Villeneuve finds difficult to resolve. Character throughlines have to deal with main characters who, as the movie goes on, lose some of their humanity due to narrative need. When the credits roll, those who haven’t drank enough of the Water of Life may experience “epic fatigue.”
The story doesn’t end there either. Even if Part Two brings Herbert’s first book to a close, Villeneuve’s adaptation does not finish here. If the proposed Part Three, which covers the sequel to Dune Messiah, is approved, it will serve as a legitimate trilogy finale rather than merely a coda. This makes this chapter firmly in the middle, with many significant threads left unresolved.
Given the amazing accomplishments on show here—unrestrained ambition from Villeneuve, more breathtaking cinematography from Greig Fraser, brand-new Hans Zimmer jams (a booming anthem for Feyd-Rautha; a dark inversion of Paul’s theme—and a plot thread involving a psychic foetus—complaining would seem churlish. Yes, Josh Brolin’s character Gurney Halleck does receive a little Baliset hit (sample line: “His stillsuit is full of piss”). By the finish, you might feel a little sandblasted, but all in all, it’s still an incredible demonstration of desert strength.