Light Spoilers for "Dune: Part Two"

The day is here. The time is now. "Dune: Part Two" arrives.

A little surreal to finally be writing this after what? Almost 3 years? I can still so vividly the first time I saw Part One on a Wednesday at 1:00 in the morning; sitting there half awake in a near-empty IMAX auditorium, just letting the size of the picture and the thundering of the sound converge in on me and take me to places that a movie theater experience had never taken me before. I exited the theater just as the sun was barely starting to rise and it felt like I wasn't even there, like it was all a hazed fabrication of the mind. A literal cinematic daydream beyond my wildest imaginations. I still consider it, to this day, one of the best movie-going experiences I have ever had, and without a doubt the most spiritual and transportive.

Tonight, I had the privilege of Seeing Part Two in the same IMAX theater that I started this path into the desert on all the way back in 2021. And it would be a gross understatement to call what Denis Villeneuve has done here anything other than colossal and game-changing.

Part One sets up and normalizes how this universe works, what its politics are like, how religion plays a part in it, and what makes its planet biologies tangible and functioning so that Part Two can live within, breathe, deconstruct, and enforce those foundational rules. "Dune: Part Two" feels like a modern extension of the Pirates or Matrix Sequels from back in the day (i.e. the first film is used as a jumping platform to get weirder and to take bigger artistic swings) and, if you all know me in the slightest, that means that I appreciated this even more than Part One, if that's even possible.

Straight-up a Gonzo Blockbuster. We had hints of it in Part One with that weird Spider-Humanoid creature on Geidi Prime and the war-mongering Sardaukar DJ on Salusa Secundus, but here we've got black and white sunlight, liquid fireworks, turning vomit into drinkable water, riding four giant Sandworms into battle, production design often clearly inspired by H.R. Giger's concept art from Alejandro Jodorowsky's unmade "Dune" adaptation, Florence Pugh's outfits, whatever the hell Austin Butler is doing, etc. Love it. That's not even mentioning the way Denis' almost liminal space visual style paired with his use of kinetic action spectacle, Greig Fraser's command of light, shadow, and color, and the immaculate sound design communicate all of it. This is just brilliant stuff. It's so wonderful to see such wild artistic visions like this in a big cinematic release again. But Part Two's fascinating elements don't lie purely in its formalist craft, as awe-inspiring as it may be.

Whereas Part One's interests lied within slowly marinating, character-driven philosophies and morals set within foreboding and daydreaming atmospheres, Part Two's interests lie within intense, palpable, ionate humanism trapped within public figure surrounded by the beauty of life ecosystems being slowly eroded by ego and greed, which, by the film's end, really end up both being the same thing. Part Two feels bigger in almost every way (emotion, scope, stakes, etc.). Part One, in retrospect now, almost feels like the calm before a violent, unceasing storm.

Together, "Dune: Part One" and "Dune: Part Two" create a whole that almost plays out like a Greek tragedy. The makings of a good man corrupted by the weight, power, and expectation of a prophet. I have not read Frank Herbert's original book in a while, so my memory is a bit faint, but so much of the emotional impact and profundity that Part Two specifically carries within its themes here feel completely from the guiding hand of Denis. Maybe Herbert's verbose prose stopped me from fully emotionally connecting with the impact that the ending of his first book has. And that's ok. But Villeneuve's care and immense focus on humanizing Paul and Jessica in Part One and going to great lengths to create such a truly sincere romantic connection between Paul and Chani in Part Two leads to such heartbreaking places that the book never instilled in me on this level.

You're seeing the worst pieces of these characters, pieces instilled in them from birth by politicians, the ruling class, religion; pieces that they themselves were actively trying to combat against, overtake them completely and turn them into monsters, what they feared most. And it's even more devastating because you knew that it eventually had to happen, especially if you know the books. But even if you don't, you can still feel the inevitability of corruption that comes with such immense power and recognition in the air throughout both Parts One and Two, yet you're still forced to watch helplessly as these characters become the things that they sought to destroy, arguably even worse than because unlike the Harkonnen's who didn't try to hide their ego, malice, and brutal imperialist tendencies, they hide their ill-intentions behind a veil in the name of righteousness. Paul, Feyd-Rautha, the Emperor; they are all the same. There is no change to the system. The oppressed are still oppressed, even if they don't realize it. Religion is liberation to the body but a cage to the soul.

Kind of incredible how this really is Chani's movie. Part One focuses so much on Paul's growth into the man that he might eventually become and it is only natural to expect Part Two to be from his perspective as well; continuing to show his evolution. But Denis quite ingeniously and empathetically decides to channel Paul's rise to prominence through the perspective of, not just someone who he will eventually oppress, but someone who loved him so deeply. Chani and how her view of Paul changes is so essential to unlocking the emotional impact of "Dune", in fact I might even call it the very core of the entire piece. Seeing Paul from her outside perspective; going from charming and promising young buck, to the love of her life, to the defiler of everything she cherished (Arrakis, her people, himself, even) is so profound and creates such a nuanced and ultimately painful look at who Paul was, who he is, and who he will become. And Zendaya conveys it all with such grace.

"Dune: Part Two" is even better than anything I could have ever wished for. It gave me something transformative of, not just its source material, but of its first half and ferociously challenges you on every belief that Part One deceived you with. It's a deeply overwhelming and distressing look at how easily charismatic leaders can rise to power that also happens to be one of the most exciting and visually-arresting blockbuster spectacles ever conceived. Denis Villeneuve knows exactly what he's doing and I love that he is bringing such important and provoking moral questions into the eyes of the mainstream cinematic populous. If this is just a taste of the horrors of "Dune: Messiah", I am equally mortified and excited beyond belief to see how far Denis is willing to push the boundaries in adapting the darkest chapter of the tragedy of Paul Atreides.

I feel like Denis Villeneuve and Christopher Nolan get compared a lot; both popular modern-day filmmakers who emphasize visual tactility, the big-screen experience, sound design, working with Hans Zimmer, etc. But what Villeneuve has that I think Nolan lacks is a pure empathy and humanity. There is a feeling of a withdrawing of the self from Nolan (similar to another filmmaker that I have complicated feelings on, Kubrick) that you just don't get with Denis. As brutalist and big as his films often get, they never become clinical or let their spectacle negate exploration of the human condition, which is without a doubt a throughline in Denis' work. All the way back to "Polytechnique", there is an amazement with what is human and the resilience of it; the resilience of it in the face of gun violence and misogyny in the case of "Polytechnique", terrorism in the case of "Incendies", child abduction in the case of "Prisoners", war in the case of "Sicario", time in the case of "Arrival", the lack of humanity itself in the case of "Blade Runner 2049", and colonial oppression in the case of "Dune". I look at that final shot of "Dune: Part Two"... and there is no question in my mind who of the two I prefer.

Desert power. An apathetic lie.