“The film is empty because it lacks the full measure of Herbert's sociological and psychological implications, AND the interior emotional strength of the characters. It fulfills only the surface level plotting.”

Yeesh, what kind of a stuffy grump would write such pablum about Dune Part One?

Oh wait, that was me!

Welp, I still feel the same way about ol’ Villeneuve’s first jaunt into Dunetown, but I’d heard good things about round two so off I gallivanted to the local theater to peruse Villy’s second stab at the material.

I’m going to try my best with this one, as my rantings for the first picture are very likely the most widely viewed thing I’ve ever put out here on my infinitesimally small and dubious corner of this website.
I’ll link it here, since much of this is going to be a response to that review.

Right off the bat, much like with the first film, I have to state it outright: I can’t be unbiased when it comes to Dune. I love Dune. I love that book with all my heart.
Just this last summer I re-read it on my old balcony, and it was still magic.

What a beautiful story, filled with depth and emotion. One of my very favorite novels. Every time I read it, I uncover new levels to the characters, new details. There are a great many lessons and powerful ideas ensconced within that wonderful book and its cast.

... Oh right, the movie!

I critiqued the first film for being too wide screen, too remote, when the story of Dune is so very personal. Luckily, Dune 2 attempts to be a more personal film, more interested in its own characters than before.
Not only that, its actually interested in engaging the audience too!

If you can’t tell, I’m going through what I liked here to start us off. I also thought the invented action sequence with Chani, Paul, and the fremen taking down a Harkonnen spice operation was quite good. Really the more active setpiece moments (setting aside the climax for now) were executed well. Paul’s first worm-riding for instance, involving and intense stuff.
The CG and FX also impressed for the most part. Whenever there was a machine or piece of tech, the designs were always pretty intriguing and imaginative. Of course, that’s all just sci-fi set-dressing in the end, but at least it wasn’t completely bland.

I also appreciate Villeneueve diving further into visions and the world of the mind a bit more in this one. It wasn't as wondrous as the film-makers I mentioned in my previous review like John Boorman or Ken Russell could have projected, but then again, Villeneueve isn't as good a film-maker as them, so I can't hold that against him.

In my eyes, this is a better film than Villeneuve’s first Dune, period.

Now, does that mean I think this is a wonderful motion picture, am I all sunshine and rainbows?
No.

I gave Dune 1 a half-star. Dune 2 gets 1 1/2 stars.

Let’s get into it.

I critiqued the first film for being more interested in plot than character, and I think the second attempts to give us more character, but it’s almost all through invented new character dynamics that suck.

Here we have a story with two important female leads: Chani and Jessica. The fremen love of Paul’s life, and his devoted outcast mother. These figures work in tandem with Paul throughout the tale, and each s the other. There may be questioning of tactics, of motive, and always fear for the others safety. But there isn’t dramatic conflict. Why then, in this film, must these relationships be fraught with mistrust and anger?

On the last page of the book, the last note the novel ends on, Chani and Jessica, two good friends, find themselves in a distasteful situation: Paul must marry Princess Irulan as a crowning step in his defeat of the Emperor and his forces.

Chani fears she will lose her husband, that she will be put to the side. Jessica knows this pain. As Duke Leto’s concubine, she could never marry the love of her life, never stand by his side as a Duchess would.
She whispers to Chani that though Irulan may have his title, she will never have his love, never bear his children, never have his warmth as they will. She deserves their pity, for history will them, and she shall be forgotten.
In Villeneuve's Dune, Chani instead hates Jessica for being a manipulative creep, and leaves Paul for turning his back on her to be the Mahdi.
Thanks Denis.

Y’know, Rebecca Ferguson is the most screwed over actor in the film, in part because her journey through the novel is so deeply personal. Villeneuve isn’t talented enough to communicate that so instead she just becomes a weird prick. The message that Villeneuve seems to want to relate with her character is that she instead becomes her mother, the awful Reverend Mother Mohiam, a prophecy obsessed baby whispering outcast. Can’t have any loving and fully ive relationships here, no sir! Let’s make up new arcs and drama!

Speaking of, Chani is the character whose emotional arc Villeneuve decides to hinge the entire film on, but she can’t act and her arc is horribly muddled, partially by the fact that the movie is sooo PG13. Come on, Dune is a rated R film.

We see Chani and Paul start a friendship, but do we ever feel the heat and ion of romance, of love? They have a kid in the original novel for chrissakes. Instead they come off like two whiny babies themselves here.

Zendaya is given one note to successfully play, angsty and grumpy, like Chris O'Donnell’s Robin in Batman Forever. Whatever else she was trying to emote (like being in love) she failed to do so. What a lame performance.

A loving and harmonious relationship can be just as difficult and rewarding to play and showcase as those fraught with strife.

Why introduce so much angst between our heroes? The North and South Fremen. The believers and non-believers. In the end, they all believe except Chani anyway, why bother introducing the whole subplot?
And showcasing Stilgar drinking the kool-aid immediately, almost as comedic relief to create contrast between him and the far more intelligent Chani is such a cheap move that robs him of his nobility.

The moment in the book where Paul looks at Stilgar and knows that his old friend no longer sees him as Paul or Usul, but now only as Lisan al-Gaib is a tragic one. But, eh, fuck it. That’s character stuff. Who cares? Even the characters have to shake their heads at the problematic bits here in 2024.

Villeneuve is so impatient to show us he knows that the coming Jihad is bad, that Paul and Jessica are using the Fremen, that the Bene Gesserit missionaries were fucked up, and that the Harkonnens and Emperor are puppets on their own strings, that he forgets the actual story of love, of family, and of revenge that is far more important to first engage the audience with. He could then add the more troubling elements as details we come to understand as the film moves on. Instead Villeneuve spells all the politics out but leaves the emotions laying lackluster in the corner.

Villeneuve seems to have a hard time with actual commitment to a thrilling romantic tale of revenge and empowerment. Which, on it's most fundamental and crowd-pleasing level, Dune is.

And as frustrating as that all is, the ball is also dropped in other areas.

This is better edited than the first film, except for the weird chunk where we leave Paul and the Fremen to go get info dumps and intros from our new and old villains. Why couldn’t these have been interspersed between the Arrakis sequences like in a normal movie? Contrast Feyd and his rise within the Harkonnens with Paul's rise within the Fremen, etc. These are such obvious suggestions, but…

And speaking of the Harkonnen, Stellan Skarsgaard literally makes no impact throughout the film. Good lord, what a waste of a great, disgusting, iconic villain. Why is he played so listlessly by Skarsgaard? Have some fun with that nasty freaky bastard! Even his death scene is a wet fart, when the audience should be cheering to see him laid low.

And poor Feyd-Rautha is so screwed over in the movie due to not appearing in the first film, or even like forty min into this one. Why?!
And even worse, Austin Butler sucked compared to Sting. More Bill Skarsgaard phony "creepiness". I can't stand it.
Why can a singer from the 80’s give a better performance than a star pretty boy actor from today? And why the hell wasn't Feyd in the first film to be better properly set up?!

Ultimately, I don't get the weird pale bulbous hairless look for the Harkonnen's either, with their weird black/white planet. I get it looks "evil" and whatnot, but I think more lushly extravagant and sexualized would fit them better, considering their great riches from running Arrakis for so many years. The Baron is a man of uncontrollable appetites, yet everything around him appears so spartan. What the hell is up with that pool?

There needed to be more color, more contrast. In the whole film.
The inside of the Fremen sietch’s should have been far more colorful, as could have been the Emperor’s palace, and the Harkonnen homeworld. Why is every culture, every freaking planet so goddamn austere!?

And don’t think I forgot about Timmy Chalamander either.
I said in my old review that far too often the note Chalamet was given to play was glowering. I wouldn’t exactly say that here, but I wish I believed the character more in his emotional moments, minus the shouting and yelling bits.
Timothee Chalamet as the Mahdi was fun and all, but he felt a little miscast compared to the great Kyle Maclachlan's more commanding performance in Lynch’s Dune.

Which, for the record, especially in the Spicediver edit form, I like far better than this completed Dune of Villeneueve. It ain’t perfect, not by a long shot… but when I read Dune, I see Maclachlan, I sure as hell don’t see Chalamet.

The film felt strangely stilted, limited. Outside of cool robots and general off-the-wall setdressing, the film still lacked expansive imagination.
But even more than that, the films pace (and score) often felt like I was watching a long trailer rather than an epic.
So many scenes came off more as highlights or music videos than actual scenes, that have a beginning, a middle, and an end. And breathe.

And as for the score I just mentioned, I will say, Hans Zimmer (AKA the Thomas Edison of our age) has a few more lively bits interspersed with the usual unemotional droning. Whatever underpaid actual composer wrote those bits, chained to his workbench, I appreciate you, even if Hans Edison doesn’t.

A big reason I went to see this is simply because I love the climax of Dune. Paul strolling into the Emperor and all his cronies midst and laying the smackdown while every loose end is tied up: Thufir, Mohiam, the Guild, Irulan, Feyd. It’s just one cathartic moment after another after all the shit the Atriedes and Fremen have had to deal with.

Once again, I don’t think this movie executed it nearly as well as Lynch did.

The big battle beforehand was… okay. I was expecting more. Legions upon legions of Sardaukar within the capital city laid low, the great storm, the hundreds upon hundreds of worms assaulting, the nukes. It could have been much more thrilling, but again, that doesn’t seem to be Villeneuve’s style anymore. Where’s the guy that made Sicario?

And the actual final confrontation should have taken place after Paul stormed the throne room, not after a weird inter-scene setting up a new setting. It just works better with Paul entering the lion's den for the showdown.
Him killing the Baron and then basically saying, “Hey, I’ll see you all again soon after we get a chance to freshen up” is just… I mean why?

As for Paul now being the one to kill the Baron, I had no problem with that. The whole idea of Alia being instead a talking fetus, taken out of the movie as an actual baby genius talking five year old is understandable. Paul being the one to kill the Baron should be a fine change, but like I said, it’s instead remote and cold, like most things in the film.
Likely because responsible cultured Villeneuve wouldn’t want us taking too much pleasure in such dirty business. Well sorry to disappoint you Villy. I likes me some dirty business.

One thing that really bugged me during the ending; Why would Paul destroying the spice matter? Does the film ever go into the Guild mutant navigators, and thus the Empire's need for spice to maintain interplanetary travel? No.

So who gives a crap if he blows the spice up? Do they even mention that would mean Paul and everyone else's death on Arrakis due to its addictive properties?

Well, I mean, we could have set that up, but then we would have missed out on Chani glaring at Paul while he bemoaned his fate for the umpteenth time.

And even more importantly; So Thufir Hawat is just dead? All the wonderful mistrust between him and Jessica, the Harkonnen’s turning him, and then his dying love and loyalty toward Paul, one of the best parts of that perfect climax. Gone.
So Paul can have more arguments about how evil his genocidal mom is. Fuck off.

The first film was undone by its sterility, its lack of empathy. Its disinterest in the mindscape; mentats, Jessica’s politicking, the guild, the spice.

The second film is instead hampered by unnecessary changes, which led to fixable pacing issues and a weakened climax. As well as a few key weak performances.
It’s not the psyche shattering blow of the first part, merely a minor bludgeoning.

Dune Part Two: A Minor Bludgeoning.

Sounds about right.

For more Dune reviews: letterboxd.sitesdebloques.org/wirthit/tag/dune/reviews/by/added-earliest/

Or for more Denis Villeneuve reviews: letterboxd.sitesdebloques.org/wirthit/tag/denise-villeneuve/reviews/by/added-earliest/