From popcorn buckets sure to be misused in cosmically terrifying ways to what seems like an unprecedented social media blitz, Dune: Part Two is casting a pop culture shadow the size of an obese sandworm. One promo clip forced most of the performers to say the word “epic” when describing the film, as though they had spontaneously conjured up that adjective. It was maybe Austin Butler’s best Dune-related acting. Just kidding, Hound Dog, you’re worth a dozen Chalamets.
Writer/director Denis Villeneuve and cowriter Jon Spaihts fundamentally do not understand what makes the intergalactic desert drama’s story compelling. To be fair, having never read Frank Herbert’s source material, I don’t really either… But I do know that people love the shit out of it. And it has to be for reasons beyond what we’ve seen in the story to this point in the cinematic adaptation, now more than five-plus hours in.
Because, thus far, the only surprising element has been how unintentionally hilarious Timothée Chalamet’s line delivery is. From “I’ve been having dreams” to multiple rage tantrums, his outer space messiah feels more like a sentient Reddit comment. Every story beat is explicitly foreshadowed and then happens exactly as described, with everyone acting shocked by it. To be clear, I am the biggest sucker on this planet for space opera shenanigans and a proud giver-of-an-A-grade to Jupiter Ascending. With this kind of budget and Villeneuve’s visual flare, the worst this could possibly be is a mostly good time.
Dune 2: The Dunening is a mostly good time. Picking up immediately after part one, which more sorta stopped than “had an actual ending,” we see Paul Atreides (Chalamet) acclimating to his new role as the somewhat-reluctant Jesus Christ of the desert-dwelling Fremen. The movie’s first hour is its best, weirdly, as watching Space Paul fall in love with Chani (Zendaya) and learn from his replacement daddy, Stilgar (Javier Bardem), feels somehow less gross than most “special white boy gets accepted by a native tribe he’ll later lead” movies.
But don’t get fooled, Space Paul is a very special white boy who gets accepted by a native tribe he’ll later lead. He also has dreams. See the aforementioned Chalamet quote. Those dreams say that his inevitable clash with the Emperor of the Universe (Christopher Walken) will be costly and bad. While Space Paul and his mom, Space Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), grapple with their intergalactic religious destinies, the evil Feyd-Rautha (Butler) licks a lot of knives on a planet full of bald people. Florence Pugh spends most of the movie dictating notes into a space tape recorder. I don’t know, man. It’s all joyless and serious.
The only humor is accidental, as Space Paul keeps collecting complicated names to make up for the fact that his birth name is Paul. He is also called Usul and Maud’Dib, and then a few other things that I’m too tired to Google. Josh Brolin comes back out of nowhere. There are nuclear weapons, so apparently this is also set in the Oppenheimer cinematic universe.
Other than visually stunning, which it inarguably and unquestionably is, the movie series is likely a victim of the book’s influence. That is to say, Herbert’s book so greatly affected all science fiction that followed it to the point where it feels redundant and obvious…because we’ve spent so much time with stuff that ripped it off. And all of that would probably be fine, if the lead didn’t make me want to gnaw my own arm off every time he spoke. He is anti-charismatic, and watching his tiny little elfin body do combat is so silly. I wouldn’t believe him as a department store manager leading employees in a battle against Black Friday shoppers, let alone as the savior of the entire galaxy. Again, I somehow still liked this movie, I want to stress that. But I equally want to stress that we need to stop it with this Chalamet business as soon as possible. And yet, will I be there for Dune 3: Dune It to Me One More Time? Yes.
Grade = B
Other Critical Voices to Consider
NOTE: Please read this review: Siddhant Adlakha at JoySauce.com says “These changes, while seemingly minor in the grand scheme of things, are emblematic of the film’s overarching narrative point of view, one which takes Herbert’s re-imagining of an Islamic galactic power structure (with mostly Shia influences) and further re-imagines it as a patronizing tale of saviorism.”
Ian Thomas Malone at ianthomasmalone.com says “Paul’s weaknesses as a messiah somewhat reflect the reality that our society has moved beyond some of the confines of Herbert’s sandbox. Villeneuve has crafted a beautiful film that will likely go down as the definitive take on the franchise, while also exposing many of the flaws that demonstrate why it took so long to get made in the first place.”
DarkSkyLady at LatinaMedia.co says “Dune: Part Two is a stunning film to behold. But it’s almost three hours long, and its lead cannot shoulder the weight of its thematic ambitions.”