Was there any doubt I would see the next Dune movie? I greatly enjoyed the first movie in this series, and generally like the work of director/co-writer Denis Villeneuve. I even placed the first one at the #5 spot for my best of 2021 ranking. So, really, I was going to see it. The strike delayed the movie’s release from late year awards bait to March, and if anything delayed my getting out to see this one, it would be when my girlfriend (also a fan of the first one) was free to see Part Two. As luck would have it, that time was opening weekend.
I’m actually amazed I liked the first one as much as I did. I mean, I didn’t much care for the source material novel…
Picking up not long after the first movie ended, Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and his mother Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) are with the Fremen, and while one Stilgar (Javier Bardem) is very much certain that Paul is a prophesied messiah for his people while another fighter, Chani (Zendaya) is very much in doubt on that. The Atredies survivors do manage to win over the Fremen and are allowed to stay, thanks in no small part to the prophecy of a coming savior. Of course, Paul is well-aware this prophecy was completely made up by the Bene Gesserit priestesses for reasons of their own. Jessica is a trained member of the Bene Gesserit, and she knows how to use these prophecies to her and Paul’s advantage. Paul, however, wants no part of these prophecies and instead will use his knowledge of the Harkonnen, the House that took over the planet Arrakis after they, conspiring with the Emperor (Christopher Walken), wiped out the rest of House Atreides.
However, there are forces out there larger than Paul and his desires. His flashes of the future show disaster will come should he follow his mother south to where the more religiously fanatical Fremen live, but in the meantime, his training in the Bene Gesserit ways, knowledge of the ways of galactic war, and his quick study of the Fremen ways, combined with Jessica’s own work securing a power base, may make it impossible for him to keep out of the destiny he clearly does not want. He mostly wants to just be with Chani, a mutual feeling provided he stays who he is. But between the plotting of Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård), his nephews Raban (Dave Bautista) and Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler), the Reverend Mother of the Bene Gesserit (Charlotte Rampling), and even his own mother, Paul might find himself taking on a destiny against his will. If he does, it won’t be pretty.
I was a wee bit surprised when I checked the review for the previous movie that I gave it a B+, but I suspect the pacing was a minor issue. This installment, itself nearly three hours, manages to keep the tone and look right, but I never noticed the runtime. It may help, as this one is based on the back half of Frank Herbert’s first novel, that most of the action of the story takes place there. In the meantime, Villeneuve managed to bring back all the surviving characters while adding Butler, Walken, Florence Pugh, and in a brief, unbilled cameo, Anya Taylor-Joy. These are all solid actors giving good performances. When the only question I have after the movie is over is how a Fremen manages to get off the back of a sandworm, I think the movie is doing something very right.
Indeed, there isn’t much if anything to find fault here. It keeps the political aspects of the source material without ever seeming bland or dull. The production design, whether the Fremen underground cities or the monochromatic Harkonnen homeworld, is fantastic. It’s a world that is both very recognizable and very human as benefits a human society set thousands upon thousands of years in the future. The story does set up a part three, and I know I plan to be there. The Dune movies strike me as a way to do a big budget sci-fi adaptation: make it cinematic, show how alien it is even if there are not real aliens that aren’t giant worms anywhere to be seen, and make things questionable. Paul Atreides is not the standard Hero’s Journey hero. He’s not Luke Skywalker or Arragorn or anything along those lines. What he is remains to be seen, and it may not be something he ever wanted for himself. I can’t wait to see how this all ends.
Grade: A
0 Comments