Dune Part Two review: Denis Villeneuve improves upon the first film in a gobsmacking spectacle

Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya lead a starry cast in sci-fi triumph Dune 2 that edifies the idea of the visual epic. (Image via X)

“Your father did not believe in revenge,” Lady Jessica, played by the brilliant Rebecca Ferguson tells her son Paul in a scene from Dune Part Two. “But I do,” he responds with a smirk and maybe a grain of contempt for his father’s naivety. It’s the first real sign of his transformation. Revenge, much like the ‘spice’ that powers this intergalactic world, is the core emotion that ties together the many moving parts of Fark Herbert’s sci-fi epic. But there has always been more to this barren, monstrously rendered world. Fascism, imperialism and romantic rebellions are all written into what has commonly been interpreted as an allegory for Arabic uprising. The first film set the ground for a messiah to emerge and the second hands him the power, the self-belief and maybe a hint of narcissism. No amount of power, comes without the slightest of costs. Dune Part Two is sumptuous, immersive and grander – if that were even possible – than the first. A gobsmacking spectacle that gets stranger and wilder at deliberately ponderous speed.

We begin this second film in the immediate aftermath of the first. The house of Atreides has been decimated by the fascist and brutal regime of the Harkonnens, led by the risible and chilling Baron (Stellan Skarsgard). Leto’s (Oscar Isaac)’s son Paul played by Timothee Chalamet), had escaped to find asylum with the blue-eyed Fremen, desert folk who live on waterless parcels of sand and battle imperial forces in sand-swollen herds. They are led by Stilgar (Javier Bardem), possibly the only character across the two films with a hint of innocence and buoyancy. The Fremen believe that Paul is the coming of the messiah, the ‘Lisan-Al-Gaib’ who will show them the way to get prosperity and a paradise their mythology has built through scriptures and seductive fantasies. Paul’s relationship with Chani (Zendaya), another Fremen, thus becomes the emotional focus of the film as he glides through the desert towards an awkward but definitive calling.

It would probably take an entire piece to just list the illustrious cast and characters on display. To the mouth-watering ensemble of the first film, this second one adds names like Christopher Walken (the distant emperor), Florence Pugh (his daughter) and Austin Butler (Baron’s psychopathic nephew). Across 3 hours, Villeneuve indulges the senses, paints a world and then punctuates it with frenetic, mind-boggling sounds that transport as much as they pull at your skin with strangeness. The latter is literally the subtext here, for there is so much absurdity and eeriness on offer it’s practically impossible to snatch a glance at something ordinary or referenceable. Paul obviously finds his calling, in somewhat sophisticated fashion and unleashes a mutiny that has several literary implications.

Villeneuve indulges the senses, paints a world and then punctuates it with frenetic, mind-boggling sounds in Dune 2.

In Dune Part Two, director Dennis Vellenueve expands on his world, momentarily traveling to other planets. But it’s on Arrakis the desert/burial ground for all living things that the film truly feels spectacular and audacious. In one sequence, Paul must learn to ride the sandworm, a civilisation-guzzling monster that slides under the desert surface. It’s a breath-taking sequencing and it berates the idea of the spectacle being manufactured inside cubicles. There is obvious craft to it all, the perfect amalgamation of cinematography, music and narrative propulsion. For all the wizardry, the broody politics and brute rituals, Dune is a staggering exhibition of minimal extravagance. The designs are muted, the dialogue pithy, the emotions stifled and yet there is this galactic feel to the outsides and the characterless insides.

Perhaps Dune’s only major flaw is the fact that it withholds inner tumult. “Don’t waste your water,” Stilgar says at one point as a sort of coda to the emotional vacuum this world can often seem to be set in. There is obviously logic to the spiritual barrenness of Arrakis – compensated by the literary hogwash of spectres and mother figures – that though it operates with bloodlines and feudal mind-sets, doesn’t exactly earn its grief and sense of loss. Far too many return from the dead and far too many move on from it to allow Dune to become as emotionally resonant as it is visually spellbinding. That said, even the anaemic inner life, sort of exerts this tint of intrigue and suspicion. It may not move you to shreds but it will awe you with its shimmering splendour.

Villeneuve’s film is possibly one of the year’s most anticipated releases. It has lost momentum since the release of the first film three years ago, but it still commands that staggering event-like aura. It can’t quite hold you under the ribs, but it will splash your eyes  and ears with some of the most spectacular visual artistry and aural choices put together in cinema. For a novel considered practically unfilm-able by most, Dune has now had multiple adaptations, with Villeneuve’s brace, an accomplishment that few would attempt to rival let alone better. It beggars belief and is prospectively larger in audio-visual pageantry, if not in endured life, than anything else you’ll see anytime soon.