Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Denis Villeneuve
Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave
Bautista, Christopher Walken, Léa Seydoux, Stellan Skarsgård, Charlotte
Rampling
Denis Villeneuve's 2021 adaptation of roughly the first half of
Frank Herbert's hugely influential sci-fi novel Dune was
made with no guarantees that we would ever receive a conclusion to the
story. Thankfully
the movie
proved enough of a commercial success for Villeneuve to be allowed to
reassemble his cast and crew in the desert for Part Two. While it concludes an adaptation of the first book in Herbert's saga,
it's very much a middle chapter, with a somewhat open ending that sets
up a potential adaptation of Herbert's follow-up novel, 'Dune
Messiah'.
The movie has much in common with another middle chapter of a space
opera trilogy, The Empire Strikes Back, or perhaps The Empire Strikes Back has much in common
with Herbert's novel. Like Empire, Dune: Part Two sees its heroes in hiding after
suffering a defeat at the hands of their enemies. The first film
concluded with Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and his mother,
Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), joining up with a tribe of
Fremen, some of whom are convinced that Paul is the Messiah that has
been prophesied to lead them to paradise. This faction is lead by
Stilgar (Javier Bardem), a fanatic who views every action of
Paul's, no matter how trivial, as proof of his messianic status. Bardem
delivers an often hilarious performance as the film pokes fun at how
fundamentalists will see proof of their beliefs wherever they look.
Far
more skeptical is Chani (Zendaya), a young Fremen girl who
doesn't believe in Paul the messiah but nevertheless falls in love with
Paul the man. Prompted by visions enhanced by his exposure to spice,
Paul begins to believe that his role is to lead the Fremen to greatness,
which in his mind will begin with taking revenge against Baron Harkonnen
(Stellan Skarsgård) for the killing of his father. This sets him
down a dark path and tests his relationship with Chani.
You can clearly see the influence of Dune on George
Lucas, as Paul's arc here is essentially that of Anakin Skywalker in the
Star Wars prequels. Lucas allowed himself a whole trilogy
to pull off this transition (though the jury's out on whether he did so
successfully), whereas Villeneuve is forced to do so in one movie. As
such it does feel a tad rushed. We don't get to spend enough time with
Paul in heroic mode for his turn to the dark side to have a substantial
impact. The same goes for Lady Jessica's arc. Elsewhere there are
characters that are set up as major figures that get lost in the mix as
Villeneuve tries to wrap up the main plotline of Herbert's book. In
hindsight this probably should have been a trilogy of three 2 hrs 15
mins movies rather than two 2 hrs 45 mins movies, and watching this play
out highlights the insanity of Dino De Laurentiis believing David Lynch
could cover all this in a single movie.
The rushing of character arcs is really the only complaint however, as
Villeneuve has crafted a gripping space opera that heavily channels the
biblical epics of the 1950s and '60s. Those movies were made at a time
when the western world hadn't yet been exposed to the full horrors of
religious fundamentalism, so Chalamet is essaying a very different
protagonist here to those once played by Charlton Heston and Kirk
Douglas. In pitting the imperial forces of the Harkonnen against
fundamentalists, the film becomes eerily relatable as an allegory for
the modern world with its conflicts that make it difficult to take a
side.
Villeneuve ups the action factor in this follow-up with a couple of
outrageously well executed set-pieces. Much of the film's opening act
mirrors the Hoth sequence of Empire as the Harkonnens
arrive in the desert with their superior technology. While there's
certainly plenty of CG utilised, you always feel you're watching a
battle play out in the desert rather than a bunch of actors prance
around in front of a green screen in a warehouse. The story's theme of a
people who have rejected artificial intelligence makes it all the more
relatable as most of the technology we see here isn't all that far from
what's currently available in our own world. When a character is mowed
down by bullets fired from a chopper-like craft that instantly conjures
up images of atrocities in Vietnam, it carries significantly more weight
than had they met their demise by a laser ray.
Villeneuve's grounded approach - which has far more in common with the
elegance and splendour of mid 20th century Hollywood epics than the CG
filled and shaky cam heavy efforts of recent decades - also serves to
make the film's supernatural moments all the more magical. There's a
scene in which a shaman type figure tames a young sandworm that on paper
is pretty unremarkable, but in execution it feels as real as those
YouTube videos of Thai children grappling with cobras.
Something else to be greatly appreciated is Villeneuve's astute
decision to refuse to explain the finer points of the film's world to
the audience. When a new piece of tech is introduced it's simply
presented without the need to fill the viewer in on how exactly it
works. When the Harkonnen troops begin to hover in a manner that allows
them to fly across small distances, Villeneuve allows us to gasp in our
own heads rather than having some character make the comment for us
(yes, I'm looking at you
Rise of Skywalker). When a gladiatorial duel is held in a vast arena that casts a
monochrome sheen over everything, we're not given any pointless
explanation to justify such a visual choice. We're simply allowed to
watch in wonder.
With a combined running time of close to six hours, Villeneuve has
forged an epic that will fill many a future Sunday afternoon. This
second part's Empire-esque ending suggests you might need to block off some Sunday evenings
too. Let's hope Hollywood has enough faith in Villeneuve by now to give
him some extra room to fully realise the next chapter of this spicy
saga.
Dune: Part Two is on UK/ROI
VOD now.
