Review: 'Dune Part Two' Is An Audiovisual Triumph

Denis Villeneuve's sci-fi sequel suffers from some of the same issues as its predecessor, but it's such a well made and well acted mega-movie that it barely matters

Dune Part Two (2024)
165 minutes
PG-13 (sequences of strong violence, some suggestive material, brief strong language)
A Legendary Pictures, Villeneuve Films and Disruption Entertainment production
Opening March 1 courtesy of Warner Bros. Discovery

Starring Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista, Christopher Walken, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Léa Seydoux, Souheila Yacoub, Stellan Skarsgård, Charlotte Rampling, Javier Bardem

Cinematography by Greig Fraser, Edited by Joe Walker, Music by Hans Zimmer
Produced by Mary Parent, Cale Boyter, Denis Villeneuve, Tanya Lapointe, Patrick McCormick
Written by Denis Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts
Based on the novel Dune by Frank Herbert
Directed by Denis Villeneuve

Dune Part Two is a spectacular piece of big-budget, major studio moviemaking from start to finish. Especially when compared to much of what constitutes a would-be blockbuster in the digital/streaming era, it’s a towering achievement in terms of how it looks, sounds and feels while unspooling in a darkened auditorium. As much as (relatively speaking) the likes of John Wick: Chapter 4 and Avatar: The Way of Water, it’s a “What’s your excuse?” call to arms. It also operates as a skewed relic of the mid-2000s when tentpoles as gorgeous (and varied) as Return of the King, Dead Man’s Chest and The Dark Knight regularly pushed the boundaries of what was possible within the medium. It has some of the same issues as its predecessor, specific to pacing, narrative redundancy and the whole “unfinished movie” thing, but good is not the enemy of perfect. 

Beginning just after the previous picture, director and co-writer Denis Villeneuve and co-writer Jon Spaihts spend the first reel or so reacclimating audiences to the visual and narrative tropes associated with the desert planet of Arrakis. There’s a lot of new lore and character reintroductions, but it’s delivered with a confident momentum and earned panache amid at least one cleverly staged action sequence involving falling bodies.

That readjustment applies to size and scale, as the visuals blend a tactile authenticity and toweringly imposing Imax-friendly scale that just makes the film seem *bigger*. That Villeneuve and friends treat this sci-fi pulp material with the solemnity of a Biblical epic gives the 165-minute epic a genuine sense of grandeur and pathos, even while we notice many of the tropes and narrative beats have been already appropriated in various films and shows that followed in Dune's wake. 

The plot is as thin as you might expect, as A) it’s half of a single narrative tome and B) the presumption of further cinematic installments gives way to a certain indifference to resolution. Timothée Chalamet reprises as would-be savior Paul Atreides as he unites with the Fremen people to wage war against House Harkonnen (whose leaders bumped off most of his family). He also tries to avoid A) being positioned as a leader of these unfamiliar people and B) bringing about a prophecy that leads to tyranny and genocide.

Yes, there are shades of Avatar and Revenge of the Sith, alongside the political tiddlywinks of Game of Thrones. To be fair, Dune came first. Moreover, audiences’ experience with those films and shows (as well as the Lord of the Rings trilogy) has helped make the seemingly too-dense source material palatable to mass audiences.  

Chalamet is excellent here, offering a nuanced and fiery star turn that positions him as a convincing action hero and makes good on Paul’s darker impulses and scarier behavior. We’ve had 20 years of promising young actors who break out via indie darlings and TV hits only to flame out when headlining a franchise blockbuster. While some of that may be the movies themselves (Dune Part Two > Battleship), Chalamet sacrifices little of his star power and charisma while playing in the tentpole sandbox.

The rest of the cast is fine and engaged, with Rebecca Ferguson playing complex notes as a wannabe mother-of-God and Javier Bardem offering a complicated portrait of a skeptic turned believer. Zendaya, while delivering more than what’s on the page, primarily provides romance and a moral counterbalance, while Florence Pugh gets what amounts to an extended cameo to set up the sequels. 

However, like the first installment, Dune Part Two is a 2.5-hour movie that comparatively runs out of track 1.5 hours in and must slow-walk or jog in place until the (bemusingly identical-to-its-predecessor) action climax. That includes lengthy digressions with the villains, including a gleefully intense Austin Butler. He is introduced around 3.5 hours into a 5-hour epic merely to provide a last-minute hissable, sexually menacing bad guy for Paul to fight.

Despite closing the book on the first Dune book, this second chapter is still slightly hobbled by the presumption of further installments. These are, overall, two pretty good 155-minute and 165-minute movies that could have been two spectacular 135-minute films. And yes, it’s an unfinished story, although it ends less on a cliffhanger (like The Empire Strikes Back) and more on an intriguing and potentially transgressive new status quo (like The Dark Knight).  

It would be almost an act of courage to end Dune here, presuming Dune Messiah will involve moral reckonings and explicit finger-wagging. Bemusingly, attempts to make this adaptation more inclusive than the 59-year-old book (while casting few, if any, MENA actors) rendered it more of a white savior power fantasy than intended. The film is obviously positioned as a cynical and pessimistic commentary on religious mania, absolute power and cult-like devotion amid circumstances where they represent an almost necessary evil.

However, movies that mock and belittle tyrants and deplorables – think Blazing Saddles or Jojo Rabbit – are less likely to be misconstrued than self-serious (varying quality notwithstanding) “bad thing is bad” dramas like American History X. It's the conundrum of empathetic films made by empathetic filmmakers consumed by unempathetic audiences. Granted, Joker came and went without incident, but I’m curious if Paul Atreides becomes the Scarface, Tyler Durden or Kylo Ren for a generation of misguided nerds. 

That’s more of an observation than a criticism and another example of the challenges faced with adapting old material while making it palatable for modern social mores. Beyond its more complicated subtexts, intentional and accidental, Dune Part Two is still a hell of a popcorn flick. It suffers from many of its then-groundbreaking character arcs and plot twists appropriated by decades of blockbuster movies and shows.

Yes, it’s a little too serious for its own good, which plays out by being longer and less narratively disciplined. However, with the help of editor Joke Walker (who cuts the action scenes for maximum clarity), cinematographer Greg Fraser and composer Hans Zimmer, Denis Villeneuve has delivered an unusually polished and uncommonly accomplished piece of blockbuster tentpole filmmaking. Good is not the enemy of perfect, and much of Dune Part Two is very, very good.