I really came into Dune: Part Two hoping for a more complete and fulfilling experience that I felt was lacking in the first film. That film was largely all about putting the various pieces into place, setting up the characters, the stakes, the fundamentals of how this world – or universe, rather – works. It’s essentially Act One: The Movie, bending over backwards to utilize the inciting incident of this grand epic as its climax. I don’t know if that’s a decision that best served the story, but that is what we got, and people seemed to like it. However, my experience with Part Two, while certainly more engaged, is ultimately about as indifferent.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have a bad thing to say about the film. On a technical level, as a spectacle, Part Two reaches epic heights that are hardly matched in modern Hollywood blockbusters. Everyone from the craft side from Patrice Vermette’s production design to Greig Fraser’s cinematography to Joe Walker’s editing to Hans Zimmer’s score to Jacqueline West’s costumes to the visual and special effects technicians to the stunt coordination and fight choreography from Roger Yuan, everyone involved clearly came into this with a lot of passion, and working on their A-game, giving the film a grand yet tactile quality.
But something is ultimately lost for me. There is something about the specific way director Denis Villeneuve and his co-writer Jon Spaihts approach this specific material that simply doesn’t resonate with me. Part of it because the performances, while strong across the board, do have a similarly stoic presence, giving almost every word a weighty emphasis, as if everyone is aware that every word coming out of their mouth is of great significance. The film isn’t devoid of humor, but most of it comes from a handful of small moments with Stilgar (Javier Bardem). Where this straight-laced tone hurts the film the most is with the relationship between Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and Chani (Zendaya), which I felt lacked chemistry and fervor.
Thematically, the film explores the many facets of this universe through the lens of power, politics, and faith, and the ways the three can intertwine. There is a prophecy believed by some of the Fremen that a Chosen One will bring prosperity back to the planet of Arrakis, and they believe Paul to be that Chosen One, though other factions are not convinced in the the prophecy at all. Paul starts off wanting to assist the Fremen in their fight against the Harkonnen, especially after they eliminated his whole clan in the first part, but he finds his boundaries pushed by the needs of the mission.
A lot of the build-up of this theme does evoke some classic and some problematic tropes, which the filmmakers are obviously aware of, as through much of the first half, it’s like the film has to go out of its way to assure the audience like it’s going to break the fourth wall and sake “trust me, this isn’t going to be another white savor movie,” as opposed to simply letting the story speak for itself. This is trying very hard to be the thinking man’s blockbuster, but most of that thinking is ultimately going to be reserved to memorizing all the names and terminology they throw at you. It also doesn’t help that the film continues to lack much substantive Middle Eastern and North African representation, aside from background performers, despite the obvious parallels and inspiration taken by Middle East history and Islam.
As a big screen experience, Dune: Part Two is really good, I don’t really have any complaints in that regard. I was a lot more immersed and engaged by my viewing, mostly because there’s just a lot more going on this time around. But as much as I dug the spectacle and the brutalist aesthetic, I just wasn’t as invested as I wanted to be. I don’t know how much of it simply my lack of knowledge of the books or my desire to see something more unabashedly weird and pulpy and gross – as one would expect from a sci-fi book that started in the mid-60s, like the David Lynch film, which I don’t think works and it’s certainly a worse film that these two, but at least it’s interesting and memorable. I really admire the craftsmanship behind this, I think everyone involved should be really proud of their work, and I don’t envy the position of anyone having to adapt a story this beloved and this dense. The film ends on a tease for a third installment, which I’m sure will please the fans of this book series and everyone who has enjoyed these movies. I guess I’ll be there, but I don’t expect to think much about Dune until then. Also, a disappointing lack of throat singing and bagpipes.
Dune: Part Two is now playing in theaters.