Dune: Part Two (2024)

Watched 3/1/24 (theater)

One of my favorite things about the Dune books is how Herbert slow-drips poison into Joe Campbell’s classic hero’s journey formula, quietly corrupting what could have been just another story about a good person doing great things. Instead of good vs evil, the Dune story gives you one side versus another, always changing chapter to chapter. Cribbing from texts both as ancient as The Bible and as relevant as today’s newspaper, the Dune motif of hope vs fanaticism and its complex, thin separating line have and most likely always will be a great comparison point for our complicated relationship with power as humans. To have such themes presented in such a large, faithful, technically-sound, satisfying blockbuster format is the ultimate treat for fans of the novels’ brilliance. 

As Dune: Part Two quickly gears up in its opening set pieces and world-building, you can immediately see that Villeneuve wanted to go in a completely different, evolved direction from the first movie. Like a Godfather Part II or an Aliens before it, going in a new direction after a successful first movie is difficult, but has proven to be an even more monumental success when done right, exciting and challenging audiences to dream as big as the filmmaker. And boy does Villeneuve dream big in this one.

Juggling a grand ensemble of characters while still finding time to have Paul’s journey in focus, we’re with Paul for so long between both movies that even when his less-desirable qualities rear their ugly heads, we side with him on his revenge path—the first Dune having taken such pains to set up the world and the tragedy of the fall of House Atreides that we can’t help but root for Paul despite any misgivings we have on the religious upheaval he slowly but surely commands.

We’re so lucky to have this overwhelmingly-self-serious franchise as such a strong corrective to the bleakly sarcastic, glib content we’re forced to consume on too regular a basis now. I have a lot of (now, unfortunately, fading) love for some of the pre-2020 Marvel movies, but their destruction of earnestness and sincerity in the tentpole movie landscape in favor of quippy exchanges and alleged self-awareness have been detrimental to so many franchises that have come since and have felt they needed to replicate pieces of that formula to achieve similar success. Upon entering Denis Villeneuve’s world, one is immediately struck by the lack of those elements and the strength of it cherishing its own reality. When humor does appear, it’s natural and warranted, it’s not just there to keep your attention, it’s not there to reference any other pop culture properties, and it’s not trying to show you how hard it’s trying.

And on the topic of luck, I feel lucky to have seen many setpieces in this movie that would have been by-far the best setpiece in any other movie, and are somehow the fourth or fifth best in this. Villeneuve’s operating on a whole ‘nother level, from the grinding mechanics and awe-inducing pyrotechnics of the bazooka raid on the spice harvester to the beautifully practical sandworm ride to the mind-blowing final assault on the Emperor’s lair that’s filled with some of the most satisfying confrontations in recent movie memory, for every big thing that sticks out, there are details under the surface such as the Fremen’s magnetic landmines and quiet, stately Harkonnen jetpack devices that completely transport and captivate you. It truly is like Villeneuve and co. went to another planet to film this, and this is the first time we are ever seeing these real-life alien cultures. The filmmakers seemingly thought of everything they could to immerse audiences as much as possible.

And the how/why of these setpieces working so well? If ambitious creativity is the main answer, then the supporting bullet points are surely such things as camera placement, sound design, practicality, editing, and the kinetic power yielded by those components. The camera is never once in the wrong place in this movie. It follows its focus, it doesn’t shake, it moves from focus to focus with grace. But it’s not overly showy. When extended shots take place, the camera moves with the action from beat to beat opposed to the camera moving while everything else is static. The camera doesn’t let you know it has an operator. Instead, it follows a sudden bazooka round or tracks a character running and fighting only to contort itself into the best possible place to make you feel a part of the action with the best seat in the house. And somehow they never really hide CG with darkness in this movie—and it works! Not a single lick of bad special effects across the giant runtime!

These setpieces being the fiery beats that they need to be serve the main catalyst of Paul well. As he becomes Muad’Dib and his legend spreads, we’re given a show in well-paced, earned development by both Paul and those around him. While some believe and others find fault in the beginning, there are enough speeches and battles and even slow, conversational time to invest in the world that you really feel part of this world by the time it becomes apparent that Paul’s innocence in the first movie was not long for this world. The pure, unadulterated Duke’s son we met in Part One quickly becomes an object of dangerous worship amongst the Fremen he works so hard to become one with (or over). Combining that with the great pains the movies take to show the near-fetishization of spice as the galaxy’s center-point really fuses the weight of the story together to feel truly epic and meaningful. 

And then there are a couple interesting thru-lines between this and some other pretty monumental Hollywood successes. Godfather Part II is the obvious one. Paul and Michael have both come into their own, exerting their influence and eventually letting that control get to their heads, eventually alienating Chani and killing Fredo, respectively, all while performing a sort of imperialistic conquest on their respective Arrakis and Cuba. With Hyman Roth and Baron Harkonnen serving as the villains in name only, both “heroes” see themselves become their enemies in the latter half of these films. It’s a credit to filmgoers everywhere that more complicated movies like Godfather Part II HAVE lived on into the next century without losing their steam and I hope this Dune franchise makes a similar impact while achieving some of the same successes and avoiding some of the same pitfalls of the third Godfather movie. Dune: Part Two has a lot of crossover with the quietly sinister mission of ‘70s movies and their anti-heroic theses. That was arguably the best decade for film and it’s exciting that this movie even scratches that surface.

The other benchmark, for the more modern era, is the Star Wars prequel trilogy. On paper it’s almost taboo to compare the two but the similarities are there. We are watching the rise and fall of a character, both literal and metaphorical, somehow being green-lighted by studios to execute this irregular concept of a downward trajectory in a studio movie setting. But there are of course a few curious, large differences. While Lucas’ films were distributed by a major studio, Dune: Part Two is even more impressive in its subversion because it is BOTH studio-distributed AND studio-financed. Somehow Villeneuve convinced Warner Brothers/Discovery to allow him make his movies completely in-step with the dark, psychedelic, pessimism that the franchise ultimately falls into. It is an extremely skeptical, vicious franchise that has no business being in conversation with the fantastical, ultra-positive heroics of the superhero boom of the last 25 years that stamped Hollywood with a seemingly lasting mark that has now finally been overwritten. Again, I love some of those movies, but they are out-thought and outclassed by this franchise tenfold in my opinion. And to the George Lucas prequel franchise, I give great credit to his vision for a 3-film arc that ends in tragedy, as so many real-life empires do. There is a way to do escapism that still makes you consider real life while watching, and his prequels strove for that with their convoluted politics and conflicted characters ending up collapsing on each other. The Dune movies have just accomplished it better with so much more of a well-conceived, well-executed affair. Not much if any of the rushed plotting, poor dialogue or strange acting that plagued the prequels has tinged this franchise so far, and hopefully Part Three can continue that trend.

And if I HAD to give a con… The hardest pill to swallow for what I will assume to be many who watch this movie, myself included, would be the seemingly abrupt turn of Rebecca Ferguson’s Jessica from Part One to Part Two. Her love for her son in the first film seemingly trumps all as she struggles to balance her Bene Gesserit responsibilities with that of her motherhood and non-marriage. I do think the deeply-embedded vignette of Jessica setting up the meeting for Paul and the Great Mother and her putting Paul at risk there is a stab at planting the seeds for her eventual turn, but I could have used a bit more reasoning or setup in the second part or even back in the first. If it had seemingly even come more from a place of love for Paul, I would have accepted it even more. But Rebecca Ferguson being such a wonderful actress coupled with the strong direction it takes the movie is all so breathtaking that this “con” is more of an afterthought.

And even with a small con you can find the overwhelming success that envelopes it, almost obscuring it in this mammoth of a movie. For any “underdevelopment” with Jessica I sense, there’s that theme of hope versus fanaticism that is just hammered home so strong, with such mastery of the genre and a singular vision. At no point do we feel that Chani or Stilgar or their many followers are actors playing a role with shabby dialogue or tacked-on triumphs. They are real characters who succeed and fail in the most frustrating of ways. It should NOT all be satisfying and it isn’t. Paul loses Chani and Stilgar loses his mind. They become part of a holy war that will certainly kill many, and the hope that once occupied and motivated their souls becomes either completely broken in Chani’s heart or completely replaced by insanity in Stilgar. Religion can be a dangerous thing and should be treated as such. High highs, but low lows, and this movie does not fear going there as so many others would. The highest compliment I can give this movie is that there was never really a standout moment that felt out of place in what was certainly the BIGGEST movie I have ever seen. With such mass, you’d think there would be more errors, but there just aren’t.

Bring on Dune: Messiah and its promise of unholy marriage meeting holy war.

10/10