A lot of people are calling Dune: Part Two a perfect movie. I don’t know that I think it’s a perfect movie. But I don’t know that I don’t think it’s an amazing film nonetheless.
Mrs. Know-It-All and I went on date night and watched it, so Part Two has now officially been watched by this household, and I’ve got some thoughts.
If I tried to do my normal spoiler talk on this thing, beat for beat, it’d literally take an hour. It’d take up most of the runtime of the actual movie. So you’re getting the broad strokes, and there are spoilers in them.
Why the Supercut Doesn’t Work
This film benefits from all the groundwork the first one did. The first one was narratively very hefty. It had a lot of backstory and a lot of ground to tread before we could get to something as amazing as this.
A lot of people are saying they want to watch the whole thing together as a supercut. I literally said it myself as I walked out of the theater. But the truth is I don’t know that a supercut would work, because it’s so front loaded with backstory.
This movie doesn’t fall short in the least. Everything’s coming together really well in this one. It literally picks up where it left off, with Paul and his mother among the Fremen, and hunters out there trying to finish off the last of the Atreides. A lot of time passes and they don’t tell you how much, but it’s enough that Timothée Chalamet’s character builds a relationship with Zendaya’s, and little by little you start to learn more about the culture and what’s going on.
I’ve read the Frank Herbert books. I’ve seen the ’80s movie. I’ve seen the early 2000s Sci-Fi miniseries, which for me was as complete a version as you were ever going to get at the time. This is more intense. This is better, I would say, and I enjoyed the heck out of it.
A Cautionary Tale About Messiahs
For those of you playing at home, the Bene Gesserit have, over time, seeded the galaxy with different myths in different cultures, and the one they sent to Arrakis is about the Kwisatz Haderach. He’s supposed to be the son of a Bene Gesserit, all these things that would have had to happen. So when Paul and his mom get there, they know the Fremen believe these things.
Now, Chani, Zendaya’s character, is part of another group of people. Consider them the millennials, or Gen Z rather, and they’re very much like, yeah, we don’t believe in that, only the fundamentalists in the south believe. And the fundamentalists are hardcore. They’re literally what it sounds like.
Stilgar so believes that Paul is the dude. So of course Paul’s mom starts using that to her advantage, building everything up and getting everyone trusting them. Paul doesn’t want anything to do with it. He falls in love with Zendaya’s character, and she’s very much like, look, you want to be Fremen, you want to be with us, fine. Fremen have to free themselves. She’s all about them freeing themselves.
I was trying to explain this to Mrs. Know-It-All. Dune is essentially a cautionary tale about messianic characters. It’s a tale about cults. Be careful who you follow.
Javier Bardem as Stilgar, the radical, the fanatic, is beyond brilliant. Little by little Stilgar is testing him, and even when Paul’s like, yeah, I don’t believe any of that stuff, Stilgar’s like, look how humble he is, he has to be the Kwisatz Haderach, the Lisan al Gaib. Several times they’re just sitting there quiet, Paul says something, and Stilgar goes “Lisan al Gaib!” And you’re like, that’s a saying now. It’s just the name they call Paul, and it’s super cool.
Every Frame Is a Picture
I’ve heard several other reviewers say this about Denis Villeneuve and now I understand it fully: every single frame is a piece of art. You could take any frame you want and hang it. Heck, the posters are amazing.
The more I watched, the more it kept happening. We’re just hearing normal story stuff and then, boom, they pan back. There’s a part where Paul is walking to this leadership meeting and you already see the throng of bodies, but then they give you this over-the-top shot, and each person’s head looks like a stone, and you just see this little teeny gap opening as Paul walks through. That’s visually stunning, and there’s a whole lot more of that kind of thing throughout.
I didn’t understand the black and white stuff in the trailers. Then you see it’s because they’re under a black sun. Even their fireworks look like white paint in the sky. It’s sci-fi, I’m good. That justification alone made me fine.
Dave Bautista is amazing in it. Florence Pugh’s amazing. Seeing Christopher Walken as the Padishah Emperor was amazing. Seeing Josh Brolin return as Gurney, it’s so wonderful seeing him. And Austin Butler as the na-Baron, or whatever the Baron Jr. is, is doing an affected voice thing that makes him sound a lot like Stellan Skarsgård’s Baron Harkonnen. I think it’s a family affectation he’s going for, and it works.
I’m a big fan of what I call high sci-fi. A lot of the Isaac Asimov stuff is high sci-fi, and this falls under it for sure. There are big concepts. This one made you forget it was a science fiction movie, or that the giant sucking maw worm thing wasn’t real.
Atomics, the Water of Life, and the Voice
I never realized that the houses all have atomic weapons. Hardcore arsenals. The Atreides brought theirs to Arrakis, and Gurney knew where it was, but he needed the genetic material from one of House Atreides, which Paul is.
Then, right before the climax, Paul takes the Water of Life, which is really just, I guess, sandworm venom, sandworm poison, whatever, concentrated out of the little baby ones. It’s blue, and that’s why the blue eyes. Super concentrated spice. His mother took it while she was pregnant, so she’s literally talking to his sister. I had to explain it to Mrs. Know-It-All: yeah, the baby Atreides in the stomach is conscious, able to communicate right now, in utero. Oh yeah, that’s a thing.
The Bene Gesserit are rough. They are some conniving people. Even with everything going on with Paul, they’re still running their machinations. After Austin Butler’s character has his big birthday victory, killing the last of the Atreides, they send one of theirs to go conceive with him to save the bloodline. And I’m like, y’all just don’t know when to quit.
Paul’s father was the Duke who was killed, and eventually he gets his revenge by challenging the Emperor. So the Emperor shows up, and that’s when the Fremen ride sandworms into battle and just decimate the Sardaukar. When they finally get there and walk in, the Sardaukar go in toward them and disappear into the sands, and a second later Paul and the others come out, and you’re just like, well, clearly those guys are done for. Super powerful.
Then the Bene Gesserit woman is like, you don’t understand, and Paul uses the Voice. “Silence!” And she’s all, oh my gosh. People in the theater whooped.
Where This Goes
I thought it was a weird creative choice to have Zendaya’s character really be the anti-Mahdi. Again, she’s the Gen Z, millennial, whatever, and it shows. The last scene of the movie is her waiting for a ride with tears in her eyes, because the only way Paul gets out of all this is, one, he’s sending the Fremen out on a holy war, and two, he’s got to marry Florence Pugh, the Emperor’s daughter, and she has to be willing in order for his claim to the throne to be viable.
All the other houses are like, we don’t acknowledge your ascension. And he’s like, take them to paradise. I’m like, whoa, bro. It’s intense. A holy war has begun.
I’ve read the books and I’ve seen the miniseries, so I’m very much aware of where the future goes. Everyone’s so excited for the third movie. I’m not, because I know where it goes. It’s kind of why the miniseries fell apart, to be honest.
Denis said he’s up for doing a third movie, and after that he’d probably hand it off to someone else. He’s a visionary for sure, and I can’t wait to see what he does.
The Verdict
Dune: Part Two is a 10 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index.
Come on, guys, seriously. After all the things I just said praising this movie, it’s a 10 out of 10 for me all day. You need to go see it. It’s a spectacle, and it’s an achievement too. I feel like it’s a milestone in cinema.
I do believe 100% that this movie benefits from the previous one, but I don’t know that I’m going to watch Part One often. I think I could rewatch Part Two again and again and again. The minute it comes out on VOD I’m going to own it, and if it comes out on physical media I’m probably going to buy it.
Your turn. Have you seen it? Are you familiar with Dune at all, the books, the ’80s movie, the miniseries? And would you be excited for a third movie knowing where this goes? The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.
