Dune: Part Two is the grandiose sum of the greater good, beliefs, prophecies, and the cost of human lives amidst love and war. Denis Villeneuve leaves no stone unturned in his power for the sequel to be as perfect as one can imagine and finally to close the bridge opened by his foray into this vast universe in 2021.

Dune's backbone is built upon the tragic love story of Paul Atreides and Chani -- slowly finding themselves at odds with each other because of the generational warfare and ideologies thrusted upon them. Every person in this story is either playing or getting played in the political games but Chani remains as the only person who sees through this facade and rejects it all making us more empathetic toward her journey. It is the reason why she is the heart and soul of this story we've seen enacted countless times. This wedge between the lovers widens with each ing minute Paul gets close to fulfilling his prophecy. The mere intervention of religion and fundamentalistic ideologies drifts them apart even further and both the actors judiciously articulate the fundamental differences between them culminating in a heartbreaking climax of odds.

The film beautifully navigates through several war themes and political indecencies committed in the name of the greater good, and with every said exploration of a theme comes a revelation explored through the central figures in the film. One such instance is explored through Stilgar played by Javier Bardem (who is terrific in the sequel) and a humorous play on his obsessiveness with fundamentalism and how every action or inaction performed by Paul is like an act of God to him that further brings them to the fulfillment of the prophecy. The dude hyped up the shit out of Paul Atreides but with each ing minute his obsessiveness gradually turns into madness and the dangerous flip side of it gets revealed.

Timothee Chalamet proves why he is the chosen one to play Paul Atreides with his articulated performance. There is a sense of expressionism -- through his expressions and body language -- in his performance that makes the audience comfortable empathizing with his character and is one of the better representations of a protagonist adapted from a classic novel. Timothee makes every scene of him amount to something much larger than the audience is aware of and his dialogue delivery in the third act would cement Dune: Part Two as the highlight of his career.

Chani, played by Zendaya, is primarily a character attuned to bolstering Paul's journey into becoming a better version of himself and someone with whom she would love to share her world but Zendaya brings a lot more to the table than the fundamental characteristics of her character. Her character rejects the ideologies thwarted on her tribe and her ability to love Paul because of his true nature makes her an endearing character in this drama.

The world-building in the sequel is subtle compared to the first one, and thus, it feels inquisitive to learn about the optics of this world while in the middle of a conversation or a serious revelation in turn making the two movies together as a complete exploration of the world of Dune. The world-building done here feels right and comprehensive given how extensive the source material is and Villeneuve masterfully navigates through the elements that work best for the audio-visual medium.

Brimmed with a heart-throbbing sound design and gorgeous cinematography -- I see no iteration of Dune working with the audiences without Greig Fraser and Hans Zimmer. Every person involved in this masterful film gave their all and all of it reflects without a mention. These technicalities make the movie soar higher than any of his previous works so far and it is no surprise this film is not accompanied by any dull moment whatsoever and we are experiencing movie magic unfold in real time.

There is no hype for Dune without the Sandworms aka Shai-Hulud and this movie features a hefty amount of them. These mystical creatures are much more interwoven in the central narrative than they were in the first film and Shai-Hulud played a much more important role in this film than just being an adversary to the outsiders. The scene featuring Paul learning to ride on one and summoning the grandest father of the Shai-Hulud would have the biggest cultural footprint in the history of cinema. The sound design and visual effects for that scene alone were one of the best attempts ever made in the history of cinema that makes the scene majestic as well as poetic at the same time. I would instantly place this scene amongst the one where Harry Potter rides on Buckbeak for the first time.

I have my reservations about Austin Butler's character Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen -- particularly he didn't seem to be a psychopath to me despite giving a menacing performance in the mix. I feel the script becomes too muddled to properly utilize his character and make him a bigger adversary to Paul. Feyd is presented as this complex character but the execution of this concept merely sticks out only in two occurrences -- The Gladiator fight and the duel with Paul Atreides. I feel in general I expected too much from the Harkonnen's and they weren't that bright of an adversary in all hindsight. Rabban played by Bautista felt wasted too given the actor's potential to carry out such a beast of character.

One of the bits that took me out of the action was the epic scale of the ending of this movie which diluted the grounded and gritty drama formulating between the houses. The movie is tasked to always rendezvous at Paul's revenge whenever drifting away from the central conflict and a quest to build him up to become the messiah. The central characters -- Reverand Jessica and Lisan al-Gaib -- eventually become overpowering enough to make every other influential character so small that they stop feeling like a threat to our protagonist. We even see glimpses of Paul's descent into something that he might fear in the future.

Villeneuve raised the bar pretty high with the intense battle sequence in the climax, and an all-out war with the Sardukars, The Imperium, and the Harkonnens and rousing speeches and chants but all is cut out to another cliffhanger ending of his that begs me to question whether he should have touched upon such a gigantic climax in this movie in the first place or would have reserved it for the third and final of his movie.