By Trudi-Rose Edwards
★ ★ ★
Here’s one you’ll want to see on the big screen. Dune Part 2, the hotly anticipated sequel to the first part of director Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel Dune, is jam-packed with actions sequences, soaring shots of majestic landscapes, and CGI that – in contrast to the majority of recent blockbusters – doesn’t make it obvious the actors are in front of a green screen.
First things first, if you’ve not seen Part 1 you really should, it would be virtually impossible to fully appreciate the film coming into the story blind. Secondly, if you have seen Part 1 you might want to revisit it before settling in for the second act. Where the first film took its (sweet) time to world build and create dramatic tension, the pacing of the second instalment is notably quicker – and not always to good effect but more on that later.
The movie picks up where Part 1 finished – in the desert – and there’s a lot to unpack (but no worries, runtime is a little shy of three hours so you’ll have time.) Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides and his pregnant mother, Lady Jessica of the Bene Gesserit (witches, essentially) played exceptionally well by Rebecca Ferguson, are now roaming the sands with the Fremen tribe which includes leader Stilgar (Javier Bardem) and, of course, Chani (Zendaya) Paul’s it-was-never-in-doubt love interest.
Having escaped the Harkonnens’ massacre of House Atreides as ordered by the Emperor (played by Christopher Walken of all people) Paul is now thirsty for revenge (and water). The Fremen however, believe Paul to be Lisan al-Gaib – a messiah figure whose coming has been prophesised by the Bene Gesserit…perhaps? Or maybe by their own people. Maybe. It’s hard to tell, so much of the myth and history is reduced to cloaked figures speaking a line or two before we cut back to what we’ve all been missing: sand.
And this is the biggest problem with Dune Part 2 – it’s hard to make sense of it. More time is dedicated to action sequences (which are great, but not exactly mind-blowing); Timothée Chalamet and his perfect hair looking moodily into the middle-distance; and endless shots of sand, skies and spacecraft, than conversation or exposition. It’s all very, Game of Thrones Season 7 sadly.
The first instalment may have been slow but at least the pacing allowed for characters to converse and conspire. In Part 2 everything zips along relatively unexplained, an example being how Lady Jessica becomes Reverand Mother of the Fremen. She is asked to take up the honour (or die, so…); then forced to drink the questionable ‘Water of Life’; undergoes a psychotic trip of sorts (psychotic visions are ten a penny in this movie); semi-dies and then just…is the Reverand Mother? She travels south to persuade the fundamentalists to buy into the whole Paul-is-the-Messiah schtick, promptly disappears for a good segment of the film and gets some snazzy face tattoos for no reason other than to look cool apparently. Oh, and she has full-blown conversations with her unborn child to which nobody bats an eyelid.
These aren’t even spoilers because at no time during the film does the audience ever feel like Lady Jessica is in any kind of danger or threatened due to her new position – gone is the eerie tension that saturated every scene of the first movie.
We also suffer a hefty dose of “Marvel Fever” in the first third of the film. Instead of relying on the storytelling and lore that Herbert’s novel gifted the writing team (a gift seemingly forgotten under the Christmas tree) or the wealth of acting talent available, Dune Part 2 makes like an Avenger and relegates Chalamet and Zendaya to bantering quips, Josh Brolin to loud mouthed goon (“what the hell?” he shouts. It’s a worm Josh, you know, the worms we talk about all the time?), and poor Javier Bardem’s character has all his rugged charm removed and is reduced to “loony religious guy” for what I gather is meant to be comic relief.
This is not to disparage the actors who do a good job with what they’re given with. The acting is, in fact, one of the strongest aspects of the film. Chalamet is likable enough to side-step (or “sand-step”) becoming a typical bland hero, and Zendaya’s Chani is fleshed out to actually resemble an interesting character rather than vamping around in Paul’s dreams like last time. Florence Pugh makes an appearance but it’s her costumes that steal the show. Those returning are stellar too such as Charlotte Rampling as the Bene Gesserit’s Reverand Mother and Stellan Skarsgård’s grotesque Vladimir Harkonnen. But the stand-out has to be the King himself, Austin Butler, who is unrecognisable playing the sadistic Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, Vladimir Harkonnen’s nephew and planned successor.
Butler’s appearance is hyped in the scene immediately preceding his first appearance (see what I mean about the lack of tension and weird pacing?) before we are thrown into a nightmare inducing, black and white world/planet/city run by the Harkonnens. These scenes – around the halfway mark – are some of the best: the weird, uniform aesthetics; the brainwashed vibe; the sheer brutality on display – it’s a real unsettling showcase and Butler really leans into the craziness. He’s not the manic psychotic that actors seem to love to play but instead a calm, almost childlike figure whose menacing looks and sinister head tilts are chilling.
In the end, Dune Part 2 is a good sequel and an excellent spectacle but you ultimately just have to accept that detail has been sacrificed in favour of epic scenery and action, which it just about manages to get away with. Are the lingering shots of dunes sandwiched between incoherent action sequences always necessary? No. Believe me, you’ve seen one grain of sand, you’ve seen ‘em all. Could it benefit from letting the actors exchange more than a line each per scene? Yes.
Fans of the first movie will enjoy the sequel, sci-fi bros (if they’re even a thing) will like the action and the “humour” and lovers of big film epics will love the cinematography and special effects. Fans of the book will suffer the usual page-to-screen woes and people looking for some intrigue or even a basic explanation as to what is happening may leave a little disappointed.
And the brave few going into Part 2 without seeing Part 1 may feel like they’ve spent three hours lost in the desert.
Dune 2 is out in cinemas from March 1
Great review!