Directed by Denis Villeneuve. Written by Jon Spaihts and Denis Villeneuve
A lot of movies are not very good, they’re just so-so. It’s the way of the world. Take any craft, any industry, any product, and you’ll find the majority of it just passes muster. A sandwich place. Your mechanic. Jeans. Most of it is serviceable, but far from memorable.
Some movies are good, because they involve great professionals who take their work seriously, turning what could be mediocre into something engaging and fulfilling. Then there’s art, and that’s often more down to alchemy than craftsmanship. Skilled laborers will get you close, but a certain je ne sais quoi remains elusive. There’s something unsettling to art, something that shifts the seat underneath you, and in correcting yourself, you change.
Dune: Part Two is not art, but it is a standout act of cinematic engineering. Villeneuve knows how to put a picture together, and if you let him add some music to it, the hairs on your neck stand up, your palms start sweating, and exhilaration courses through your veins. Like a V12 engine or a Swiss mechanical watch, its meticulous design is nothing short of impressive, and the second installment in the space saga involving precious resources, mysticism, politics, familial strife and even frustrated love doesn’t let its predecessor down.
What worked well in Dune returns for a victory lap, running faster somehow. The spectacle is greater, the story doesn’t have to labor with an hour of world-building and can get straight into the action, and Villeneuve gets to continue building on characters he has already introduced. The result is a grandiose adventure with breathtaking scenes, arresting cinematography, and a sense for the epic.
Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), after surviving the sneak attack by rival clan Harkonnen that linchpinned part one of Dune, has been taken in by the Fremen, the indigenous people of Arrakis. He’s mourning the loss of pretty much his entire family, save his mother Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), and getting to grips with feelings of revenge and the rumor mill casting him as a kind of messiah-figure who’s to lead the Fremen to greener pastures. It’s a lot of pressure.
The tribal Fremen are wary of this outsider, save their leader Stilgar (Javier Bardem, who manages to inject comedy into a Villeneuve movie, which is no small feat) and Chani (Zendaya), who sees potential in Paul, both in terms of adaptability and romance. As for Paul, he wants retribution; he also wants to better other peoples’ lives. He doesn’t want to lead, but he recognizes his goals will require it. The soft idealism of youth is colliding with the harsh cynicism of adulthood. With political schemes unfolding off-planet, the inertia of war seems inescapable.
While Dune: Part Two does everything the first part did, and better, it also tries for more. Stilgar, Bardem’s gruff militia leader from Dune, is now a blind zealot, and his giddy belief in the prophecy surrounding Paul becomes a welcome release valve amidst the brooding. Beyond laughs, Villeneuve can’t ignore his source material and so there’s a love affair to contend with as well. People and their messy relationships are not quite within Villeneuve’s power at this point, however..
Central to this new ambition is the fraught relationship between Paul and Chani. It comes together so suddenly you wonder if scenes were cut. Put it this way: Villeneuve spends less time on developing a transcendent love affair than he does on Paul rolling around on the back of a sandworm.
Villeneuve’s also been quoted as saying he cares little for dialogue and it explains his strengths and shortcomings. Dialogue, the interplay between two characters, is where they evolve and become real, and Dune: Part Two has little time for it. Like Arrakis, the desert planet on which it takes place, the movie has a formidable splendor to it, but nothing grows. Villeneuve’s film is about big spectacular moments, and people’s feelings don’t qualify in the macro scale of things, but when the spectacular moments are so many it’s almost a parade, Villeneuve’s philosophy is vindicated.
Movies don’t have to do everything, but I do believe great movies do everything well that they put their mind to. Still, Dune: Part Two is about as good as popular mass entertainment gets, an awe-inspiring production combining and perfecting so many of the things we go to the movies to experience. The thrill of action, the feeling of being swept along on a great adventure, jaw-dropping spectacle, and being transported somewhere new and exciting. Villeneuve proved himself a master at directing an encompassing epic with Dune and with its sequel, he draws a fat line underneath that fact.
Mikkel Frederiksen 