Dune 2?
Shit.
I'd rather be Dune 2 chicks at the same time.

The above is what I spent most of the second half of the film compulsively trying to formulate into a proper joke in my head for this review, while at the same time trying my absolute damndest to stay connected with what was happening on screen, instilling in me an obviousness of life that is hard to reckon with when you want to like a movie: I did not like this movie.

I obviously failed miserably at both things, but I wanted you to understand somehow, someway, just how little I still cared about what was happening on the screen by the very end, after a fairly engaging and interesting and funny and exciting first hour, and the above joke is the best way I can explain it. I equally can and cannot believe it but as a whole package, they really do fit together seamlessly, because this is just more of the exact same as part one for me: visually idiosyncratic, devastatingly loud, and dramatically/thematically/comversationally/emotionally cardboard thin.

It made me question how much I believe in the future of Villeneuve.
It made me question how much I believe in the future of Chalamet.
It made me question how much I believe we should be adapting humongous heralded stories, ever, especially if we're not gonna do anything that different or interesting with it.

And by the end, I was feeling exactly like Chani, making scrunched up faces at what I'm hearing/seeing and ready to head out at the first moment possible. So if you need me, you can catch me riding a sandworm into the sunset, chunking the deuces to all of the believers, and doing my best to try and find something that I actually wanna put my stake in the ground for. *makes a W shape from their two hands indicating a WHATEVER mindstate*

"Lead them to paradise."