Let’s get straight to the verdict. Dune: Part Two is visually spectacular but dramatically inert, the good stuff attributable to its remarkable director Denis Villeneuve, the bad stuff down to the writer of the original novel/doorstop, Frank Herbert.
This is not going to be how everyone sees it, of course, what sort of a world would that be? But if you’re one of the people who picked up Herbert’s original Dune at some point only eventually to put/fling it down again after tiring of the relentless one-thing-after-anotherness of it (see also Tolkien) the movie won’t offer much that the book didn’t, its retina-cleansing visuals to one side.
It picks up right where Part One stopped – the House of Atreides was in the process of establishing peace, culture and all the good stuff on the planet Arrakis after having been given the concession to mine its Spice (a cross between fairy dust, crack and gold) by the Emperor in a deliberate bit of divide-and-rule politicking.
As the curtain went down on Part One the Harkonnen – who saw Arrakis as theirs by right – were launching an attack on the planet. As it rises on Part Two, House Atreides has been wiped out. Though unbeknown to evil Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård in a fat suit), Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and his pregnant and increasingly spooky mother Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) have survived and are now skirmishing alongside the Fremen, the planet’s displaced original inhabitants, desert habitués, universal-refugee stand-ins, noble savages etc etc etc.
A Jesus/Buddha/Mohammad/Luke Skywalker arc now plays out. As the boy becomes a man, it looks as if the prophecy is about to be fulfilled – that mortal Paul will be revealed as the messiah, the Kwisatz Haderach of legends vouchsafed by the Bene Gesserit, the coven of licensed witches led by Reverend Mother Mohiam (Charlotte Rampling), the Emperor’s Truthsayer.
It is all very Star Wars, which is no surprise because George Lucas deliberately borrowed from Herbert’s Dune when he embarked on his exercise in ab initio world-building in the 1970s (when David Lynch started work on his Dune in 1982 he quickly came to realise that Star Wars had stolen most of its lunch). But Villeneuve has set a new benchmark with these two films. The vision, the detail, the way logic is followed through, is of the highest order.
At early stages, when Paul and Jessica are first in the desert with the Fremen, there is a nature-documentary aspect to Villeneuve’s presentation of Arrakis – how the Fremen survive on a planet with no water, how little desert creatures like the giant-eared mouse do the same.
It’s here that the film is at its most interesting. All a preamble for what gradually morphs into a war movie, and as Dune: Part Two does so, it becomes dull.
But but but… Zendaya! At the end of Part One it looked like Zendaya’s Chani, potential Fremen love interest for man-in-a-hurry Paul, was going to be the key to the movie’s second instalment. But she’s largely thrown away in Part Two, or possibly remains the stealth weapon for the Part Three now in the process of being made.
Welcome returnees alongside Rampling and Skarsgard, Ferguson, Chalamet and whatever Zendaya’s surname is (Stoermer Coleman, says Wikipedia) include Dave Bautista, Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem, in a vastly entertaining roaring/whispering performance. New arrivals: Christopher Walken as the Emperor, Florence Pugh as his scheming daughter, Léa Seydoux as another of the hissable Bene Gesserit and Austin Butler as Feyd-Rautha, psychopathic son of the Baron. The first three we don’t see enough of, whereas there’s a bit too much of the self-regarding Feyd-Rautha.
Though David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia is clearly also a massive influence – the desert vibe and Islamic stylings – there would be no Villeneuve Dune without Game of Thrones. And no Game of Thrones books without Herbert’s original Dune. It’s the intrigue, the political scheming, rather than Paul’s “journey” towards self-knowledge and possible hubris that gives the film its grit, its grip.
Watched together with Part One, this is a glorious and magnificent journey. But the really good stuff – the introduction of the main characters, the world-building, the arrival of the sand worms – is in Part One. Part Two is the stunningly wrapped Christmas present that turns out to be the same thing you got last year. On to Part Three – Dune Messiah, based on the second of Herbert’s original tranche of six novels. We could be here for some time.
Dune: Part Two – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2024
