Timothee Chalamet as The Dune Man (CREDIT: Warner Bros. Pictures/Screenshot)

Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista, Stellan Skarsgård, Christopher Walken, Charlotte Rampling, Souheila Yacoub

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Running Time: 165 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Sword and Knife Fights, Mostly

Release Date: March 1, 2024 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: They’re still feeling spicy after all these years! After the ending of 2021’s Dune saw Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) teaming up with the rebellious Fremen, Part Two picks up right where things left off on the desert planet of Arrakis. Elsewhere, House Harkonnen has their sights set on clamping down on their control of Arrakis for good, with the violently unstable Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler) promoted as the new governor. This whole situation has a significant portion of the Fremen believing that Paul and his mother (Rebecca Ferguson) have arrived on Arrakis to fulfill a messianic prophecy. Other Fremen, however, including the hot-blooded Chani (Zendaya), are a little less convinced of that savior narrative. Nevertheless, Paul does seem to be willing to do the work to prove both his loyalty and his freedom fighting bona fides.

What Made an Impression?: It Makes More Sense Now: My introductory synopsis could have gone into a lot more detail, but I do try to keep things succinct in that section. And that’s especially important in the case of a movie like this one, because so much of it would sound like psychedelic sci-fi gobbledygook to the uninitiated. Which, to be fair, it is psychedelic sci-fi gobbledygook. But on the other hand, the culture at large has become much more initiated into the world of Frank Herbert in just the two and a half years since the last Denis Villenueve-directed adaptation. I certainly count myself among those who now have a far greater understanding of what Dune is all about. Great movies have a way of teaching you how to watch them, and despite being a nearly-three-hour space opera epic, Dune: Part Two is gratifyingly easy enough to understand. It’s a simple hero’s journey, complicated by skepticism, and all the baroque details are there to support that overarching theme.
A Vision Realized: 2021’s Dune was fairly praised for its stunning visuals, but perhaps they were a little too stunning. That is to say, their sublime bigness kind of lulled me to sleep. But by contrast in Part Two, the settings are often blazingly bright, so it’s hard not to keep your eyes open. That’s how it goes when most of the running time is spent on a desert planet! From the explosive emergence of the famously feared sandworms, to the stormy wrangling of those same sandworms, the spectacles of Arrakis are brought to unforgettable life, with clean and crisp editing and cinematography making it clear exactly what we’re supposed to be seeing. It all adds up to a simple, but impeachable union, of technical proficiency and thematic confidence, which is in fact the formula for successful blockbuster filmmaking.

Dune: Part Two is Recommended If You Like: Heterochromia, The Rick and Morty episode where they “do a Die Hard,” Grappling with religion

Grade: 4.5 out of 5 Fremen