Always weird to see one of those “this guy makes everything better!” actors in a role where they decidedly do not improve the film, and even weirder to see the same actor achieve this dubious feat twice in one week. Granted, Christopher Walken’s performance as the Emperor in Dune: Part Two isn’t the on the same level of trainwreck as the one he gives in Communion (a movie about alien invaders much more interested in butts than spice); he’s not terrible here, no, but he most certainly is very Christopher Walken™ , which fits in with the tone of the film about as well as would casting Adam Sandler as Feyd-Rautha. Walken’s a heavy spice, and wanting me to believe the Harkonnens would cow to a guy who thinks of punctuation as more of a roadblock than a communicative tool is asking a bit much. Walken as that doctor who gives Leto Atreides a fake Baron-killing tooth? Sure, to hell with it, why not. Walken as the overlord of the entire known universe? Get the fuck outta here.

If you can’t tell, I’m struggling to justify why I’m only lukewarm to Part Two, and fairly ambivalent to Villeneuve’s whole Dune saga on the whole. I mean, I really liked Part One after my first viewing, cooled towards it somewhat after a rewatch, and now after getting through the final half I’m firmly in “eh, it was fine” territory, without much of a reason other than, well, I thought it was fine. The massive scale is indeed massive and awe-inducing, the worm-riding looks like a fun way to a summer afternoon, and who wouldn’t like to stumble across their dad’s hidden cache of atomic warheads? All good things, no doubt. But Villeneuve’s need to address the white savior aspect feels only partly developed; his half-measure narrative provocations resulted in a strong “look, Denis, shit or get off the pot” reaction from me, especially once we reached the film’s non-ending (which is becoming a hallmark of this series, apparently). Sure, at least Villeneuve broached the subject of colonizers and fundamentalism—unlike Lynch, who byed the whole white savior thing by having every goddamn person on Arrakis be white—but the conclusion, where Paul sends all the Fremen into space to get blowed up by the Great Houses, doesn’t sit all that well with my tender liberal sensibilities. Plus: do they get blowed up? Who knows? Why have an ending to a story when you can extend an IP until the end of time?

Anyway, someone show me a deepfake of Sandler as Feyd-Rautha and Sting as Paul Atreides in the climactic Dune: Part Two battle and maybe I’ll get some fucking sleep tonight.