With the (very elegant) table-setting out of the way, Villeneuve is free to get stuck into the meat of Herbert’s story and all the bloodline politics, messianic manipulation and worm action that entails. As a man who’s never read the books but has seen the broadly misbegotten Lynch adaptation, I was aware of the wider contours of the story beforehand and was deeply curious as to just how Part Two would treat the ascension and ultimate, erm, destination of Paul. Much has been said about the daunting scope and severe tone of these movies and, whether that works for you or not, it’s hard to deny that it imbues the saga of the Mahdi with a sense of world-shattering gravity that’s awesome (in the literal sense of the world) and hugely disquieting, immersing you in an environment with the tangible intensity of Jackson’s Middle Earth and slowly chipping away at the idea that things are going to turn out well for humanity-at-large. Villeneuve wisely plays the culmination of all this interventionism, exploitation and calculated callousness for all the horror it’s worth, tinging the spectacular battle sequences with the knowledge that we’re seeing the proverbial genie being released from the bottle and bringing a pleasing sense of ambivalence to the action (to the point that I did, ittedly, find certain motivations slightly inscrutable at key points and wasn’t sure that I was supposed to). Even if this is the hero’s journey as the story of rot, though, there are so many tactile grace notes around the edges that it feels textured and multi-faceted: the various manifestations of desert-tech; the genuine joy in Chani teaching Paul the way of the land (which Zendaya sells the hell out of); the shifts in characterisations as the events of Part One continue to ripple out, whether it’s loosening up (Brolin), drinking the fluorescent blue Kool Aid (Bardem) or coming apart at the seams (Bautista); the sinister, tar-black sexual energy Butler is bringing; the sheer goddamn exhilaration of sand-worm riding… I feel incredibly lucky to live in a world where these adaptations exist and (apparently) make enough money to continue justifying themselves. I really hope Villeneuve gets his Messiah moment.