Dune: Part Two – a rous­ing and styl­ish hard sci-fi sequel

We join Tim­o­th­ée Chalamet’s Paul Atrei­des at a moment of cau­tious accep­tance, with the prospec­tive mini-mes­si­ah hav­ing just best­ed a not­ed Fre­men war­rior in a mano-a-mano knife tussle. 

The first part of Denis Villeneuve’s impres­sive Dune saga cov­ered the open­ing sal­vo of Frank Herbert’s freaky 1965 opus, set­ting up the polit­i­cal con­text of war­ring noble fam­i­lies and a desert plan­et (Arrakis) rich in a mul­ti-pur­pose hal­lu­cino­gen referred to as ​“the spice”. This con­tin­u­a­tion of the sto­ry charts Paul’s omi­nous rise and even­tu­al tran­scen­dence, but refus­es to ride the ragged coat­tails of his hero­ism and charis­ma, instead deal­ing in the moral mine­field that comes with being ordained a mys­tic god.

Vil­leneuve very light­ly tweaks the suc­cess­ful for­mu­la that was coined for Part One, with the sights, sounds and sen­su­al stig­ma of Arrakis car­ried over in his patent­ed, supreme­ly taste­ful less-is-more visu­al schema. Those who per­haps found that the first film sapped Herbert’s book of some of its more lurid and eccen­tric delights in favour of a stern, teu­ton­ic grandeur will be pleased to hear that the direc­tor – who is not known for work­ing in warm or com­ic hues – has scat­tered the first half of the film with some nice joc­u­lar horse­play and a few salty one-lin­ers. And not to men­tion a bur­geon­ing, beau­ti­ful­ly-realised romance between Paul and Fre­men foot­sol­dier Chani (Zen­daya).

There is focus, too, on the var­i­ous con­trap­tions and giz­mos that make life in the desert pos­si­ble, most notable of which is the icon­ic ​“thumper” which, when plant­ed in the sand at the cor­rect point, issues a pound­ing beat to draw in the planet’s sand­worms – who are com­plete bas­tards, unless you know how to lure them in then surf on their heads. The unclut­tered design and dec­o­ra­tion of the film means that these details receive the atten­tion they deserve with­out draw­ing you out of the sto­ry which, for bet­ter and for worse, was not some­thing you could say about the David Lynch movie from 1984.

With the Atrei­des clan now dec­i­mat­ed due to a sur­prise attack from House Harkon­nen (over­seen by Stel­lan Skarsgård’s rotund floaty slime-bather, the Baron), secret­ly sanc­tioned by the Emper­or of the Known Uni­verse (Christo­pher Walken, obvs), the Fre­men now have the tac­ti­cal advan­tage of being able to mess with the planet’s spice-har­vest­ing pro­gramme. Indeed, if there’s an issue with the film at all it’s that the Harkon­nens don’t ever seem to pose that much of a threat to the Fre­men, what with their under­ground lairs and guer­ril­la war­fare tactics. 

As such, the story’s cli­max plays like the obvi­ous con­clu­sion to the a care­ful coun­ter­at­tack rather than a tense flash­point riv­en with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of fail­ure. Ret­ri­bu­tion is received in a man­ner that eschews tri­umphal­ism, to the point where it all feels a lit­tle bit rote. Yet Vil­leneuve some­how acknowl­edges this with a pair of haunt­ing, polit­i­cal­ly-loaded images which top and tail the film, both of which decry the inhu­man round­about of pow­er and the arro­gance of lead­er­ship which always seem to end up pun­ish­ing those whom it should, in the­o­ry, be elevating.

A more gen­er­al point of praise derives from the sim­ple, tac­tile qual­i­ties of the pro­duc­tion where dig­i­tal effects and green screen have been used extreme­ly spar­ing­ly. See­ing a lav­ish sci-fi epic which has actu­al visu­al tex­ture and arti­san craft is sud­den­ly spe­cial again due to the sad fact that such prac­tices have fall­en out of favour (or, more like­ly, are not deemed finan­cial­ly worth­while) with­in the Block­buster Indus­tri­al Complex. 

Film­mak­ers should take pride in the work they’ve done and want to dis­play the wares they’ve painstak­ing­ly pro­duced, and in this respect Vil­leneuve is very much fol­low­ing the charge led by Christo­pher Nolan in his belief that view­ers respect artistry that takes time and patience rather than process­es that are used as time and mon­ey savers. Sure, there is artistry in the process of dig­i­tal effects, but not when they’re being used – as they so often are – as a bandaid.

The first half of Dune: Part Two is among the best things that Vil­leneuve has ever done, though the sheer event­ful­ness of the plot and a bustling ret­inue of side-play­ers (Austin But­ler upgrad­ing Sting’s cod-pieced nin­ny from the 1984 film into a hair­less psy­chopath is wor­thy of men­tion) means that the final act does feel rushed. In terms of nar­ra­tive pac­ing, it’s easy to see how this could’ve been sliced into three films, but the ques­tion remains as to where part two would’ve end­ed and whether a lack of clo­sure may have alien­at­ed the more casu­al Dunehead.

Small nig­gles aside, this is an undoubt­ed suc­cess, and is pow­ered a clutch of lead per­for­mances – Cha­la­met, Zen­daya and Rebec­ca Fer­gu­son as a new­ly-ordained Bene Gesser­it rev­erend moth­er at the shin­ing core of the ensem­ble – help to fore­ground the rich polit­i­cal ambi­gu­i­ties inher­ent to the text.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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