Denis Villeneuve’s 2021 sci-fi epic Dune was a movie about power. For Paul Atreides, the film’s protagonist, power meant adapting from sea power and land power to the desert power he discovered on Arrakis, the desert planet to which his family was sent to oversee. The second installment in Denis Villeneuve’s planned Dune trilogy redefines power altogether. It’s still desert power that Paul seeks, but a power more reliant on influence rather than sheer might.
As a reminder, 2021’s Dune ended after House Harkonnen attacked House Atreides to reclaim Arrakis, with Paul (Timothée Chalamet) and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), being exiled to the planet’s vast desert, where they encounter a Fremen sitech, of which Paul defeated a member in combat and met the girl he — literally — dreamed about, Chani (Zendaya) before walking off into the desert sun.
Dune: Part Two picks up almost exactly where the first film left off — House Harkonnen is in control of Arakis, Lady Jessica’s pregnancy is more preeminent, and Paul is still on the path laid for him by the Bene Gesserit to — possibly — become the Kwisatz Haderach, as touched upon in the first film. We’re deeply immersed in the ways of the Fremen and their desert as Paul becomes one of a new culture and cultivates his relationship with Chani, allowing for her expanded role in the film (Chani only appeared in a brief few scenes in the first Dune).
Given more screen time, Zendaya defines herself as a powerful force opposite some of her generation’s biggest talent, playing a range of emotions in a short period of time, a testament to Denis Villeneuve’s direction and the way he’s able to quickly transition from intimate to epically grandiose in a moment’s notice. Florence Pugh — a new addition to the cast for Part Two — is given the relative short end of the stick in a similar way that Zendaya was in Part One, playing a character with a small, important role here, with the supposed promise of a bigger, more prominent part in the next film (Dune: Messiah, if all goes according to plan and Villeneuve gets to complete his Dune trilogy).
It’s worth noting that because of the nature in which Dune: Part Two is scripted and structured, it’s difficult to aptly discuss certain aspects of the film without leaning into heavy spoiler territory, which this review will not do, but it is equally worth recognizing the film’s pacing, or lack of consistent pacing, that is. The first hour, stuffed to the brim with the intricacies of the world that we need to know and understand — they’re all important, just wait and see — moves slower than the rest of the runtime, closer to the tone set by this film’s predecessor. The good in this is that it allows Villeneuve to be more deliberate in his filmmaking. Some things, like Hans Zimmer’s (fantastic) score, are toned down, and other details, like longer shots that feel less like shooting for coverage, become more noticeable. This seems to end, however, when Paul steps up to ride a sandworm and earn his place among the Fremen (part of this scene was attached to the Dune (2021) re-release. You can watch it here).
It’s at this point that the film turns its attention to introducing (in rapid succession) a slew of characters who we haven’t yet met but will need to know of by the third act, including Austin Butler as Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, in a glorious black-and-white gladiator fight scene, that, while epic in scale, lacks the specific direction and impact placed on a later scene involving Butler’s character. The good news, however, is that Butler goes all the way in transforming himself for the role, with a smooth bald head, black teeth, and Weird VoiceTM that’s somewhere between a Stellan Skarsgård impression and the Elvis voice that he seemed to be unable to shake during last year’s awards campaign (he can’t hold the accent the entire time but it works). Butler holds his own against the likes of Skarsgård, Chalamet, and Léa Seydoux, maintaining a level of deeply uncomfortable creepiness that’s somehow slightly endearing.
Performance-wise, to be clear, the film rises and falls on the shoulders of Timothée Chalamet. Chalamet’s Paul is given… an excitingly interesting character arc, to say the least. George Lucas clearly borrowed from Paul Atreides’ character when crafting Anakin Skywalker, so take with that what you will. Chalamet plays the lighter parts of the character with ease, nailing the joy and excitement felt within Paul in the film’s first act, but when it’s time for him to really step up, to be the film’s true leading man in a role that demands him to be utterly captivating for the character to work, he just can’t get all the way there. The fault might not all be fairly placed on one party, however, as Denis Villeneuve’s grip on the film’s balance between intimate emotion and grander scale slips in the third act, with a final set piece that feels smaller than it should. Maybe it’s because of misused relative perspective, but when you put something big next to something bigger, that makes it [something relatively big for us humans] look small, and you don’t remind yourself to ground the film’s scale in something easily understandable (something Villeneuve does well in Dune and Arrival), you lose sight of the actual size of the target, so to speak.
That’s not to say that overall, Dune: Part Two doesn’t handle scale well — it does. It’s a modern-day blockbuster that accomplishes the rare feat of demonstrating a level of attention to detail that few films of its scale now have, with each line of dialogue, scene, and individual shot being meaningful. No filler, though; at times, it could use a moment to slow down, but that’s the cost of the adaptation.
To be 100% clear, this is a positive review. Dune: Part Two is fantastic. It takes what worked with the first film and aims to improve upon what didn’t, setting up Messiah to complete what is undoubtedly one of the greatest modern sci-fi blockbuster franchises. It’s only (unfortunately) easier to delve into what doesn’t always work than what does, given the way the film adapts the source material and the spoiler-y nature of almost everything that happens within it.
Dune: Part Two is the rare blockbuster that finds a near-perfect balance between character and story, creating an alien word that feels lived in and evolves upon its predecessor rather than just feeling derivative of it. It’s also a film that suffers from being the middle part of a trilogy, afraid to give the story a satisfying conclusion (though this ending is more satisfying than that of Part One), so it can motivate audiences to return for whatever comes next. Whatever does come next will undoubtedly be great and grand, and precisely what this trilogy needs to end with is a truly phenomenal film.
Dune: Part Two releases in theaters on March 1.
