This article contains spoilers for Dune.
It is rare in today’s cinema landscape to see an original spectacle movie. The main reason for this is that many recent blockbusters fall into the category of remakes, sequels, prequels, and/or spin-offs that over-rely on the audience’s connection to pre-existing material. Spider-Man: No Way Home may be a fun movie, and certainly it has scale, but it’s a composite of things that the audience has seen before. On the other hand, some tentpole films fail to reach qualification because of a lack of well-done spectacle: for example, Tenet has a unique premise and original (though boring) characters, but suffers from poorly designed setpieces and underbaked stakes. But recently, with the release of Dune: Part Two, moviegoers can see what a true spectacle film is. Despite it being a sequel and an adaptation of a popular book, the film also delivers on originality because, even with pre-established characters, it shows the audience things they haven’t seen before.
Dune: Part Two, the follow-up to 2021 Best Picture Nominee Dune, returns many of the cast and crew from its original. Director Denis Villenueve and Cinematographer Greig Fraser are both back, as is star Timothee Chalamet. Most of the ensemble, which includes Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem, Zendaya, and Stellan Skarsgård, also appeared in the first film. Noting all of these returning elements is important because the precise reason Dune: Part Two works is that it doesn’t need to spend time introducing the characters or a visual language. If the first Dune had one flaw, it was that much of the story is devoted to that set-up, and the story ends right as main character Paul Atreides (Chalamet) embarks on the main journey that is depicted in Dune: Part Two. Without that burden upon it, Dune: Part Two becomes a movie, for better or worse, free from most storytelling and thematic constraints.
When Dune: Part Two revels in that freedom, it results in some of the best action of the 21st century. The sequence in which Paul rides his first sandworm, which has been much-teased throughout the movie’s marketing, is exhilarating. Villenueve isn’t overly concerned about the logistics of sandworm riding, and we never see Paul training. The point of the scene isn’t about how Paul gets on the back of the sandworm but rather what being able to does to him. It’s economic storytelling that a film that is already 167 minutes long needs to move quickly. This scene is then called back to during the film’s climax, which takes this scene and expands the scale very effectively.
It also wouldn’t be right to talk about Dune: Part Two without mentioning the most important of the newly introduced characters, Austin Butler’s Feyd-Rautha. who takes over as the main villain from his uncle, Baron Harkonnen (Skarsgård). While he is a much more active villain and poses a larger physical threat to Paul and the Fremen, his presence is part of what makes Dune: Part Two a less interesting film than its predecessor. Baron Harkonnen, a hulking and oil-drenched man looms (literally and metaphorically) all over the first movie, but his threatening aura doesn’t manifest in real bloodshed until the third act. In contrast, Feyd-Rautha’s introduction is set during a gladiatorial battle where he brutally (relative to PG-13, at least) murders three former allies of Paul’s father. It’s an exciting scene that was shot with infrared lighting and has as much energy as any other moment in the film despite its smaller scale. What it also does, unfortunately, is give us an exact approximation of what his skill level is at hand-to-hand fighting where, when that situation happens later, there is no surprise. It’s a painfully obvious set-up from someone who has shown he can do better.
Moments like these unfortunately appear more than once throughout the movie. Timothee Chalamet’s performance loses its uncertainty from the first movie and turns into compelling-but-still-generic shouting. The imagery of the Muad’Dib, a small desert mouse, is used sparingly but effectively in the first Dune, symbolizing Paul’s fall from royalty and his turn into a Fremen; In the second, it appears early and often as Paul takes it as his Fremen name. As far as modern tentpole films go, it isn’t that bad, but when you’ve made something as good as Dune, the mark is set higher than that.
As much as Dune: Part Two has its problems, at the end of the day, it’s exciting to have something that fulfills its promises when it comes to spectacle. But more than anything, its biggest accomplishment is increasing hype for the potential Dune: Messiah.
