Dune Part Two Review: Visual Masterpiece

Dune Part Two Review: Visual Masterpiece. Denis Villeneuve returns to Arrakis in Dune: Part Two, a sequel that sharpens the successes and mistakes of the first installment among gigantic sandworms.

By Megan Sauer

Just because the industry has accustomed us to overlapping filming of colossal productions does not mean that it is the best way to face a saga.

Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. have demonstrated this by tying the production of Dune: Part Two (2024) to the box office success of Dune (2021). This strategy has enabled Denis Villeneuve to approach the sequel as a distinct project while maintaining continuity with the original novel by Frank Herbert. By incorporating enough unique elements, the two titles avoid feeling like a single extended journey spanning over five hours.

This approach allows for a renewed creative spirit in the individual filming of the sequel, resulting in the visually rich imagery captured in Dune: Part Two. The film stands as a testament to the necessity of cinema’s survival on the big screen, embodying excellence in every aspect and serving as a compelling argument for the continued relevance of large-scale cinematic experiences.

Everything in this installment is more imposing, exaggerated, and bombastic, essential elements in a hard science fiction story that cried out for a brave commitment to the tackiest part of this intergalactic soap opera.

In this chapter, we get to see the main character, who becomes a hero and a messiah, dealing with family dramas, religious conflicts, and deep philosophical discussions. It also highlights the most unstable members of the Harkonnen family, the most evil political schemes, and the largest creatures called worms.

Wrapped in the sweet embrace of the music of a Hans Zimmer who believes himself to be the true Kwisatz Hadarach, Timothée Chalamet rises by convincing us of his conversion into Muad’Dib, even supporting the shots he shares with Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, and Javier Bardem, the three fundamental pillars on which this New Testament is supported, from which, no matter how resounding its final climax, the Apocalypse has once again been ripped from it.

Villeneuve, desperate not to abandon Sandy Arrakis, has been unable to close the story. With The Messiah of Dune already in mind, he has subordinated a satisfactory conclusion to the future return to a universe that could also occur with this arc already finished.

It is precisely this condition of discontinuous narration that makes Dune: Part Two a more irregular title than lovers of rooms full of fans could wish for. Similar to the first installment, the nearly three-hour duration provides ample time for visually stunning scenes. However, these scenes sometimes struggle to convey the narrative effectively, resembling highlighted passages from a book chosen primarily for its illustrations.

As much as David Lynch’s Dune (1984) smells like a theater every time the dreamer tries to direct more than ten actors in the same scene, that production did try to unravel the human part of what Herbert proposed.

With less epic on screen, its magnetic colored nights and Kyle MacLachlan’s brilliant smile underlined a fundamental idea that has become, forty years later, the biggest problem in the ocher succession of photographic miracles of a Villeneuve who does not dare to equip of life to the elements in plane: “Fear is the mind-killer.

The best: the approach to the pomposity that this hard science fiction soap opera deserves. The worst: it inherits the narrative and tonal problems of the first installment.

Data Sheet

• Director: Denis Villeneuve
• Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Austin Butler, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Florence Pugh
• Country: United States
• Year: 2024
• Release date: 1-3-2024
• Genre: Science fiction
• Screenplay: Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve
• Duration: 166 min.

Synopsis: The rise of Paul Atreides among the Fremen continues, starting an unstoppable rebellion against the Harkonnen and Emperor Padishah Shaddam IV. Becoming a messiah, Muad’Dib must carefully calculate his steps in the beginning of an Interstellar Holy War.