Dune: Part 2 – A Review in Brief

This Movie IS For:

• People looking for jaw-dropping cinematography that will make you say ‘damn, Dennis!’
• Those who want to see Austin Butler get completely unhinged, hairless, and psychotically pouting

This Movie is NOT For:

• Diehard fans of the Dune books who want nothing changed
• Those of us who were waiting for the appearance of a telepathic toddler and wondering how the hell the film was going to do that with a serious tone

A Brief Review with Minor Spoilers:

I went into Dune: Part 2 riding high on having just rewatched the first film (review), read the book, and seen the rave reviews. I was ready to become a changed man and pledge myself to the spice and church of director Dennis Villeneuve. Unfortunately, I left with a shrug. Dune: Part 2 changes many pieces of its source material for the better, but unfortunately, the narrative suffers for it. Motivations are muddled, character decisions happen in seconds, and more than anything else: There is no telepathic toddler, and that is a crime.

Starting with the great, Dennis Villeneuve knows how to shoot a movie. Just like its predecessor, Dune: Part 2 is a spectacle. The scenes are awe-inspiring, the battles have weight, and anything involving the Harkonnens is disturbing in the best way possible. The Harkonnen home planet is incredible to watch and the best thirty minutes of the movie. Austin Butler is absolutely unhinged and the perfect companion for Stellan Skarsgard’s Baron. These are menacing villains with real weight and psychopathy.

Unfortunately, the same care is not shown to Timothée Chalamet’s, Paul or Zendaya’s Chani. The scenes where it’s just these two on screen are hard to watch. The dialogue is painful and delivered on stilts. To be clear, these are two great actors, it just seemed as though they were working with bad source material. In general, I felt that the pieces of the film on Arrakis couldn’t decide what type of movie they wanted to be. It bounced between comedy, action, and a little bit of horror with no real staying power. Chani gets a lot more agency than she did in the books, which is wonderful, but it ends up making Paul’s actions feel too sudden and unjustified.  

In the book, this second part takes place over years. In the movie, we’re led to believe it all happens in about nine months (judging by the fact that Paul’s mother never gives birth). Changing that timeline makes everything feel rushed and removes the weight from the story. There’s a difference between watching Paul lose his mind fighting in the spice for years and fully committing to the Fremen, versus him suddenly deciding he’s a messiah in a few months. I get it, having Paul’s mother give birth would have meant filming scenes with a telepathic and/or talking toddler, and that’s hard to do, but the decision hurt the film.

Overall, Dune: Part 2 is gorgeous and fun to watch, but that alone can’t carry a movie that’s nearly three hours. If it were closer to two hours, I think I’d have less complaints, but if you’re going to keep me for a long time, the plot better be damned good. This film had all the right component parts but didn’t get them together in the same way as Dune: Part 1. Austin Butler is phenomenal, and I’ll watch him in anything else, but the Arrakis cast fell flat. I’ll still see Dune: Messiah in theaters whenever it releases, but I won’t call its predecessor the Lisan al Gaib.

3/5 Stars – Talking toddlers are eschewed in favor of watching Austin Butler lick another knife

More info about how I rate things here.

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