Awe Strikes Back in Dune: Part 2

Theatrical movie releases at the beginning of the year are predictably rancid. Only a colossal sandworm can devour the memory of The Beekeeper, Mean Girls, and Argylle.

Thankfully, that worm arrived on February 29 to represent the second part of Director Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of the Dune universe. And, like his first effort nearly three years ago, Dune: Part 2 is an enthralling exercise in awe—both practically wrought and imaginatively immense.

Starting right where Part One left off, Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) joins up with Chani (Zendaya) and the Fremen wanderers of Arrakis, pursuing a path of vengeance against Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård) and the Harkonnen House that destroyed his family. Visions of a devastating future continue to haunt Paul while his relationship with Chani blossoms. Meanwhile, Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh), daughter to Emperor Shaddam IV (Christopher Walken), quasi-narrates the political developments surrounding spice commodities and galactic battles in between.

Like Part One, Villenueve somehow coagulates the complicated plotting into a solid, linear journey with an unsettling spiritual undertone. Composer Hans Zimmer wisely does the unexpected and pulls back. Instead of hijacking the eardrums, he sprinkles in subtle metallic timbre in between the silence. The result is a hallucinatory complement, especially to the new character scenes of insidious Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler, who is definitely not Elvis anymore).

As Villeneuve stated at a prescreening interview, “Where Part One is more of a contemplative movie, Part Two is an action-packed, epic, war movie.” This is an understatement.

The battles are beyond epic proportions—at scales not even video games can conceive. Greig Fraser’s cinematography somehow blends gritty sand scapes with clear, radiant orange hues amid the action. Massive spacecrafts appear just as tangible as the desert-weathered armor and metal weaponry. Yet, it is not the combat that arouses the entertainment factor in Dune.

The quest for power and its accompanying spiritualism is more staggering and violent than the violence itself. In essence, Denis Villeneuve achieves a formidable conflict of good versus evil both Star Wars and Lord of the Rings stans can relate to.

Show stealer goes to Javier Bardem as desert-whisperer Stilgar, who brings the necessary humor and faith-filled charm to the movie.

A far cry from the exposition-obsessed Frank Herbert novels and David Lynch’s incomprehensible monstrosity, Villeneuve’s Dune universe is a force for the senses, an embracer of the journey, and a guide through character arcs. Villeneuve’s Dune is why movies were made in the first place and why we’re always captivated by a galaxy far, far away.

***** out of *****