Dune: Part Two

2024

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Sigh. It looks like I'm gonna be in the minority for this one.

I just didn't get into this. I didn't get a whole lot more into Part One even during my third and most recent viewing, but I liked it enough that I was on board for what that movie was setting up for us to see in the continuation. ittedly, I always mentally checked out for whatever reason right before that ending fight scene in each of my three viewings. In Part Two, my interest level went down before the movie even got to the last third of the runtime. I couldn't quite put my finger on why while I was watching it. Having read David Enrlich's review after the movie, I think that he put across what I couldn't process and articulate. The below text from his review is what I choose to reflect my overall opinion on Dune: Part Two:

"The awesome spectacle that Villeneuve mines from all that scenery is betrayed by the smallness of the human drama he stages against it, with the majesty of the movie’s first hour desiccating into the stuff of pure tedium as Paul Atreides struggles to find his voice amid the visions that compel him forward.
[...]
Yes, this is a vaguely Oedipal tragedy about a manchild lurching towards the same violent outcome that he’s so determined to avoid (you’ll have to wait for the not-yet-announced but inevitable β€œPart Three” to see how that plays out), and of course there’s an ancient power in the story of someone fighting against the fate that’s been written for them. But the iron grip of that inevitability should only make it more heart-wrenching to follow Paul as he tries to find his role among the Fremen of Arrakis and avenge his father without instigating an intergalactic holy war.
Instead, Paul’s growing prescience becomes a major albatross for a film too focused on the big picture to look for signs of life in each scene along the way, and watching this boy-god arrive at the only possible future among the many that he learns to foresee is as dull and emotionally disengaging as it was to watch him awake to that destiny in the first β€œDune.” β€œPart Two” may be the more broadly entertaining of these two movies, but feeling unmoved by the climactic sight of Willy Wonka riding a 400-meter sandworm into battle against a Manhattan-sized disco ball is also a much weirder and more uncomfortable kind of disappointment than anything the last chapter had to offer."

A disappointment to me as I really do respect the care that was put into both movies. I eat up any imagery in art that show subjects engulfed by their environments, and we know by now how well Villeneuve masters the sense of size. There was hope for me in the first half-hour or so. I liked seeing how the Fremen survive and what they do with any moisture they have. It was weird yet fascinating to see their way of life in this universe that's made fairly comprehensible to a mass audience. The sandworm ride with Paul that has been featured in much of the ment manages to be even more impressive and thrilling than we would expect. I made a big grin upon experiencing that scene which turned out to be the high point of the movie. The big gripe of mine is that I just wasn't emotionally invested in the characters which I think lack a certain juice to be compelling. (Javier Bardem being a possible exception in this second half.) That combined with the solemn tone made Part Two fairly tiresome. It doesn't need to be fun or fast, just more alive.

TL;DR: Technically sound, marvelous on the big screen, but I could care only so much less with what was happening as the story went on.

For those who have seen the movie:
There's a moment late in the movie where we see a dead body left in the desert, and that contains a close-up shot on the victim's ear with ants crawling around it. Was anyone else reminded of the first shot of the ear in Blue Velvet?
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