Before reading this review of Dune: Part Two, I urge you to look at my previous one. It simply saves us some time. The issues of Dune: Part One carry over—as does much of the praise. As is ideal for the second part of a two-parter, this feels like the natural continuation. The long play simply had an intermission. Dune: Part Two assumes you recently watched the previous film and explains little to nothing.
And this has the odd effect of not bringing as much attention to all the problematic issues—for the most part. It’s still obviously informing everything, but it doesn’t feel as in your face as before. Except one gestalt thing. The various cultural and religious stuff is still incredibly prominent, as is the white savior stuff connected to it. And, once again, as I said in that previous article, I don’t have the expertise to speak on that.
The condensed nature of Dune: Part Two also leads to a shockingly different viewing experience. Without the heavy exposition, without the continuous character setting, everything zips by way faster than the first movie. It felt less immersive, but gave Dune: Part Two a much more action-packed pace. And considering the thing I most liked in Dune: Part One was the special effects and creative combat scenes, this movie is obviously superior in my subjective opinion.
But there are also some odd plot circumstances caused by all of this. Taking out all the exposition was a mistake. There’s the continuous question of “Why didn’t you use/mention that before?!” Stuff like nuclear weapons, magnetic mines, and whatever odd cluster-shot thing the flying vehicles use comes into play at important moments and we had no way of knowing that was a possibility. Even established stuff wasn’t explained well. Shields were only used sometimes, when it made for a cooler scene, even when people were getting stabbed. The Fremen must have some kind of tunneling ability because it was sometimes questionable how they managed to get underneath that particular patch of sand. And, perhaps most damning of all: Spice. Despite Spice being this incredibly big thing—something worth having the emperor of the universe care about on a personal level—it was barely talked about, and I don’t actually know if either movie actually explained what exactly it does. Does it affect Paul differently than the Fremen, or could any of them feasibly do what he does? Does it give the worms powers somehow? Why don’t any of the villains ever use it? Dune: Part Two just kind of expects you to roll with things, guess at things, maybe with the book in hand for reference, and enjoy the spectacle of the Fremen using the desert in different ways to attack well-armed foes.
And, well, it does kind of work. So, hats off to them—I guess. The action was great. Paul drawing fire as Chani tried to deal with a helicopter was a dynamic, interesting setup for an action scene—and Dune: Part Two has a ton of other moments like that. The big ending battle, especially the first few minutes of it, was just cool. Worm attacks and explosions are a winning combination. It’s exactly what you would want from a science fiction action movie climax.
But, I did say “kind of” and the rollercoaster of oddness did not stop. Dune: Part Two has a pacing problem. For a movie series that spent like six hours to convey this story, they sure did rush the finale. The deck was absolutely stacked in the oddest ways to ensure that Paul—who notably cannot get off planet and has little-to-no air support—got to fight against a great big foe and win in such little screen time. Injuries that instantly killed people before were almost ignorable when it was a main character. Enemies that should have been some degree of challenge were dispatched in seconds. And then it ended on a cliffhanger, of all things. Maybe the book also ended on that cliffhanger, but this was such a commitment to watch—demanding so much of a viewer’s time—that I cannot believe they left it there. I cannot believe I’m saying this, but it needed to be a three-part movie. Let the story breathe and expand even further.
At least some aspects made Dune: Part Two feel narratively satisfying, if not always pleasant. We get a genuinely scary villain whose actor dominates so many scenes. I wish he was in the first movie, as he’s essentially an evil version of Paul in a lot of ways. Not that Paul is always good. There was a level of downfall here. Once Paul accepted his power, once he started acting much like how his mother already was acting, he was incredibly ruthless, both on a personal and political level. Timothée Chalamet put so much energy and force into those scenes, too, making the more kindhearted Paul from before seem essentially lost. I’d almost like to see a movie that leans even harder into that concept, taking it to its most intense version.
But I did like Dune: Part Two well enough, I suppose, as it is. It’s hard not to appreciate what craft went into it. I could follow the story well enough, even as it felt constantly retconned, and the actors did a wonderful job, just as before. The cinematography is gorgeous and the special effects are a marvel. It’s an easy movie to lose a few hours to, and it’s good that fans of the book get an adaptation with this much gusto and effort put into it. Whether or not they liked the finished product, though, is not my place to say.
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