“You should have believed.”

Despite this film possessing the narrative grace of an anvil dropped from a ten-story building, it is, at its core, a disbeliever of its own theme of faith. Faith in its audiences to understand more complex contexts than an overgeneralized and cliché depiction of war, faith in the story to slow down and provide characterization and symbolism in a subtle manner, and faith in the original text that it adapts from, the latter of which heavily criticized the figure of a messiah through mass consequences. It shows little belief that its audience can understand the nuances of a cinematic religious epic, so it takes the easy route of throwing famous faces and making tepid parallels to the Biblical tale most people in the world, in some aspect, have already familiarized themselves with, despite how it attempts to make weak parallels to the Muslim figure Imam Madhi and his arrival heralding Judgement Day. All kinds of theology are muddled in the hands of this disbeliever of a film.

The measure of how much this film doesn’t believe is exemplified in Paul, who resembles more of a Christ depiction than Imam Madhi. This Christ figure's only challenge and fear is his inevitable fate as a Messiah, which he later arrogantly absorbs as absolute truth. The film appears to laud this Messianic path he takes with swelling music and sweeping visuals, which contradicts their intents double fold.

If it attempts to criticize the concept of a Messiah, as the original Dune text did, most of its cinematic language seems to point towards the opposite: championing Paul as a righteously vengeful Messiah. If it attempts to show the glory of such a figure before his fall, it fails to depict the very things Christ was well known for—community and benevolence. The audience encounters communities through Paul’s eyes, but the film refuses to learn and empathize with the many characters and communities for more than a second. The Freman are simply a persecuted group that exist within a desert. Chani is named Desert Flower, but her name is simply used for narrative prophecy and not to build her own character. Paul and the film itself have no faith in knowing people other than their surface level details, which goes against every parable Jesus taught that screamed judge others as you wish to be judged and love thy neighbor. Paul is not a Christ that learns and spreads his words through kindness and adversity; he is an uncompelling Crusader that bulldozes through the desert with little conflict stopping him, invoking the name of Christ for the Holy Land, made all the more explicit with his mother’s call for the Holy Wars.

The way this film attempts to capture the magic of Mad Max Fury Road is almost laughable. Fury Road does not claim itself as a complex religious allegory with compelling and nuanced characters, especially with how its marketing campaign framed it as, first and foremost, a simple action film. However, it effectively performs better as one than Dune with the underlying currents of community, resilience, and faith pumping and powering its veins like gasoline. Fury Road's protagonists are introduced simply, but possess intriguing motivations and are allowed to experience gradual character growth. Even its villains are shown to have a nuanced type of wickedness, as they have parallels to pale underground parasites of the desert, addicted to feeding off of other life forms, whether living or carrion. In contrast, Dune: Part Two takes out all the compelling notions of a religious parable with its simple fact that it does not believe in itself or its audience; thus, this film delivers a barrage of visuals, characters, and sounds at breakneck speed to force feed its narrative to its audience, fearful that they will realize its lack of faith.