Dune: Part Two Review — Denis Villeneuve’s Sequel Is A Dread-Inducing, Awe-Inspiring Sci-Fi Tragedy

The task of adapting Frank Herbert’s Dune was never going to be easy, but Denis Villeneuve chose to do it twice and managed to pull it off. Dune: Part Two is an awe-inspiring sci-fi spectacle and a devastating collision of myth and destiny on a galactic scale. In returning to the world of Arrakis, Villeneuve has crafted one of the bleakest blockbusters of the century as Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides falls into a well of prophecy. Even in sacrificing some of what gives Dune its signature weirdness, Villeneuve brings Herbert’s work to life in a way that is definitive.

Dune: Part Two is the sequel to Denis Villeneuve’s 2021 film that covers the novel’s events by Frank Herbert. The movie continues the quest of Paul Atreides on a journey of revenge against those who slew his family. With insight into the future, Atreides may be forced to choose between his one true love and the universe’s fate. 

Pros

• Denis Villeneuve brings Herbert’s world to life in excellent detail
• The film’s visual language is stunning
• The film is a sci-fi epic that earns its title
• The characters’ inner struggles are on full display

Timothée Chalamet Gives One Of His Best Performances In Dune: Part Two

Dune: Part Two has a sense of dread that lingers over it like the sand that coasts over the desert. Instead of a looming attack from a rival house, the dread is much more existential as Paul is fighting against destiny itself. Upon joining the Fremen, Paul is pulled in two directions. He eagerly shrugs off Bene Gesserit prophecy in favor of simple revenge, but Fremen factions fight over his place in their society and, in his willful ignorance, Paul misses what was true all along: His mother and the manufactured Kwisatz Haderach prophecy are too powerful to be ignored.

It’s a terrifying thing to behold as Paul becomes a willful victim of fate, but, like the gom jabbar test proved, he’s not one for impulsive decisions. Paul’s turn from fighter to leader, from reluctant prophet to full-blown messiah, is a decision he makes with the full knowledge of the personal and political consequences. It’s a big ask from Villeneuve, as it was from Herbert decades ago, and the director’s take on Paul may be slightly more sympathetic than the author’s.

Dune: Part Two Is A Dark Descent Into Fanaticism

Dune was long considered un-adaptable for a myriad of reasons — its dense world full of otherworldly technology seemed nearly impossible to realize visually, but it’s really the internal worlds of its main characters that seemed most difficult to bring to life. In changing key parts of the novel, though, Villeneuve makes Paul’s reluctant pivot towards fundamentalism all the more tragic. Zendaya’s Chani serves as a perfect foil for Paul and her chemistry with Chalamet sells what would feel a bit thin otherwise in the first half of the film.

Ultimately, it’s Lady Jessica and Feyd-Rautha that reveal the true terror of unfettered belief. Watching Rebecca Ferguson stride through the Fremen’s desert hideaway as she whispers to her fetus could easily fall into caricature if it weren’t so chilling. As she embraces the role of Reverend Mother and pushes Paul towards his fate, the lines between prophecy and family begin to blur, recalling a pivotal conversation between Duke Leto and Jessica about protecting Paul. Jessica, in her own way, is protecting him, but to shield someone in mythology is to invite different dangers.

One of those dangers is Feyd-Rautha, a bald and eyebrow-less Austin Butler oozing with insanity. Paul and Feyd have more in common than either of them would admit, and their intertwined destinies make the inevitability of Paul’s visions that much clearer. Dune: Part Two‘s scenes of Giedi Prime expand Herbert’s world in visually arresting ways — the black-and-white effect produced by the planet’s black sun feels harsh against the warm earth tones of Arrakis and a scene between Lea Seydoux’s Lady Fenring and Feyd manages to be terrifying and sexy, an effect Butler is clearly aiming for (and pulls off).

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Dune: Part Two Blows Expectations Out Of The Water On All Fronts

Paul’s quest for revenge against the Harkonnens is the driving force of the first half of the film, and it allows Villeneuve and cinematographer Greig Frasier to show off the true desert power Duke Leto kept going on about in Part One. They nail every element of the world that was teased or glimpsed briefly in 2021: Villeneuve’s sand-bound action is as impressive and foreboding as the angular Arrakeen palace — Fremen silently erupt from below the sand to knife their enemies and Spice harvesters explode with world-shattering might.

The scale of the first film is multiplied tenfold with extended visits to Giedi Prime, Kaitan, and the supposedly inhabitable southern deserts of Arrakis, all against the backdrop of grand tragedy. Revenge — something that, as Jessica points out, Paul’s father would reject — is an early indicator that, despite his best intentions, Paul will fall prey to the plots at play.

Revenge always morphs into something deadlier and more monumental, but in the desert of Arrakis, Paul is eventually forced to choose between holy war-inducing survival or the end of everything he has come to love. Like Chalamet’s transformation, Javier Bardem’s Stilgar quickly goes from skeptic to disciple as his unbridled thirst for prophecy realized overtakes any logic that Paul or Chani attempt to thrust upon him.

It’s the perfect encapsulation of the thematic center — it doesn’t matter whether the Kwisatz Haderach is a manufactured myth. No matter what anyone does, Paul is always going to confirm the Fremen fundamentalists’ belief in the messiah, leading to billions of casualties across the empire. His acceptance of this fate is perhaps the most terrifying thing of all in Dune: Part Two, and it’s hard to overstate just how impressive Villeneuve’s film really is.

It’s an epic science-fiction tale told in a visual language that is both uncomfortably intimate and imposingly grand, a terrifying thing that you can’t look away from, and perhaps one of the best book-to-screen adaptations of all time.