Three years ago, when Denis Villeneuve‘s first Dune installment hit screens, I had only read the first book of Frank Herbert’s seminal space opera series. As I mentioned in that review, I thought it was a solid if unspectacular take on what is basically the second most influential genre novel in all of modern publishing history. A more palatable adaptation that David Lynch’s truncated attempt of the early 80’s, but still one that was stifled by the need to curtail Herbert’s wilder eccentricities to adapt to the current tastes towards minimalism. In short; while sequences like the Fall of Arrakeen are arresting, and some of Villeneuve and team’s additions to the story (the visions of Jamis that Paul has before meeting him) are poignant, Dune: Part One was overridden by a general flattening of SF’s arguably greatest epic that was hard to escape.
Dune: Part Two suffers from the same general aesthetic challenges. It’s still guys in black space suits fighting guys in gray space suits, with the occasional appearance by guys in white space suits. But, where the first film was all set-up and ambling preamble, this second half of the story is where Herbert’s much more interesting material lies and the audiences are much the benefactor for it.
It’s saying something that for a book that contains things like giant desert worms, a substance that can allow you to see into the future, and galactic empires that its most compelling facet is its preoccupation with political intrigue and the fiction of prophecy. Yes, long before George RR Martin was leading you along with doomed hero Ned Stark and “the stallion that mounts the world” in Khal Drogo, Herbert was diving deep into the Machiavellian plotting of secret societies and the work that goes into creating a sense of belief around messiah figures. The first film touched on this briefly, as Paul struggled to come to terms with his abilities as the Kwisatz Haderach, but Part Two is where all of this takes bloom.
Living up to Chani’s (Zendaya) promise that “this is only the beginning” and picking up from that moment, we see Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) and his mother Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) wandering the desert with the Fremen under the lead of Stilgar (Javier Bardem). While the pair of outsiders are beginning to fully adapt to the Fremen’s ways and customs, Stilgar and a group of true believers are starting to believe that there’s more to this Duke’s son than initially thought. A rift begins to grow between both the more devout tribal leaders and the younger generation (with Chani among their ranks) about their coming messiah (the “Lisan al Ghaib” if you’re keeping track at home). How Paul is able to bridge that divide while Jessica also begins to commune with her unborn daughter and the role she plays, is what unfolds over the course of the film.
Granted, that also ignores that there’s an entire plot around Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgard) and his two nephews, Beast Rabban (Dave Batista) and Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler) struggling to battle against the growing tactics of the Fremen under Paul’s ever-expanding guidance. This is troubling for the Baron, not the least of which because it stalls out his spice production and brings the attention of the Emperor Shaddam IV (Christopher Walken) and his daughter the Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh).
It’s a complex and heady brew, yet also a rousing one. While the first film was a bit imbalanced in its need to worldbuild, explain, and then still try to provide some semblance of thrills to the point of tedium, this is an effort that finds everything clicking. Action bursts are shorter and served in much more satisfying chunks, while character dynamics are better served here too. Instead of relying on the actors to parlay relationships that largely go unspoken and causing some of them to work overtime (like Jason Momoa and Josh Brolin), here we finally get a better sense of who Gurney Halleck is, and the more time we spend with Stilgar, the more we like him. I haven’t seen a Bardem performance I’ve enjoyed this much in a while, dryly funny sits especially well on him.
That Villeneuve finally embraces the more surrealistic aspects of the source material has its thrills as well. Granted, his vision of Paul’s heightening awareness still is only slightly elevated beyond Christopher Nolan-style grounding, but these sequences are just dreamy enough and drive home the building struggle of Paul’s decision between vengeance and ending the tyranny of the Harkonnens and the possibility of greater atrocities with an advent of a future empire in his name. Speaking of the Harkonnens, I think calling Oscar nominee Austin Butler a revelation is a bit silly at this point, but he gives the already iconic Feyd-Rautha (Sting in a speedo!) a more terrifying spin that creates a nice “Paul gone wrong” sort of foil. And he mimics Skarsgard’s accent in a way that makes him sound a lot like Bill and underlines Butler’s clear love of voice work.
In the lead-up to the film, I was somewhat puzzled by how little narrative time either Feyd or Irulan actually have in the book and how that would be managed on screen given the star power of the actors involved. Happily, Villeneuve and screenwriter Jon Spaihts have crafted a few additional scenes that better situate these key characters in ways that aren’t canon breaking in any way and likely serve to set up the inevitable third film. To that same point, while I’m loathe to say the film actively improves on the book, when it comes to Chani that might actually be the case. Despite their relationship being a bit speed-ran, Chani is a much more active presence – both in her reticence to Paul ascendency throughout up to the film’s closing. I love the book, but you’ll never see me argue that it’s final pages are its strongest, and the filmmakers realize that too.
In all, color me impressed. I came in with no small amount of reticence around Villeneuve’s vision of Dune. While I still think he has blindspots to how utterly weird this stuff should be, Dune: Part Two brings to life the more vital facet of the book’s themes and plans within plans in a way that a blockbuster hungry audience will gobble up. This is getting into the rarefied company of Peter Jackson working on Lord of the Rings, or darn close. Go ahead and mark this one down as a leading Best Picture contender for next year’s Oscars.