"He who controls the spice controls the universe"

While highly critically acclaimed, Dune (2021) left a fairly substantial elephant-in-the-room regarding its ending. An adaptation of Frank Herbert’s foundational 1965 sci-fi epic of the same name, the film depicted roughly the first half of the book’s narrative. Those who are familiar with the source material will know just how demure and mild the events of that book’s first half are compared to its second, and the result from Dune: Part Two (2024) is similarly bolder and far more audacious in scope, with monstrous set pieces and high concept thrill-rides abound. Overall, the quality of filmmaking is acutely similar to Dune (2021), the dramatic, austere performances, visual grandeur, powerful sound design, bold set piece coordination, and wide sense of narrative scale all come back in full force. By-and-large, it forms a fairly faithful adaptation. Ultimately, however, that’s both a blessing and a curse as some of those same strengths and weaknesses of the book make appearances here too.

Continuing the high stake conflict between members of noble families vying for control over the production of the Spice Melange narcotic drug, Dune: Part Two (2024) finds Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), as outsiders in a strange land, presumed dead, stripped of their titles, possessions, safety, and now with only their wits to arm them against their trials to come on their new home: the Arrakis desert.

Amongst some of the more present grandeur of a production of this magnitude, one understated highlight of Dune: Part Two (2024) are the scenes with newcomers Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh) and her father, Emperor Saddam IV (Christopher Walken). Pugh embodies the wise, scholarly fierceness and vulnerability needed to inject pivotal narrative moments with a quiet tension and together they add the exact appropriate weight needed to convey her careful control and perceptive nature. The two paired with Reverend Mother Mohiam (Charlotte Rampling, whose stand out performance in the 2021 instalment is just as spectacularly present), form a feast of narrative tension, an enrapturing centre point of threads that tie the film’s divided plot elements together.

The introduction of Lady Margot Fenring (Léa Seydoux) also forms another such striking capstone: a mystifying Bene Gesserit noble, whose well rounded, yet brief performance is punctuated by some expressive editing and fun visual imagery (partly involving fireworks of all things). Her story beats aren’t only told through direct action, but also some inventive functions of filmmaking and manipulation of narrative point-of-view. While Fenring doesn’t take up too much screen time, to the film’s success, her purpose is well used to form part of an underlying focus for many of the world building elements, and uplifts the Bene Gesserit storyline as a whole. The four (and a half?) Bene Gesserit characters we encounter throughout the film are all remarkably diverse, with a spectrum of personalities, aspirations, skill sets, and strengths and weaknesses in spades, though unfortunately, the same can’t really be said about the Harkonnen family plot line, which might be one regrettable weakness of Dune: Part Two (2024).

Speaking of which, Austin Butler portrays Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, a menacing loose cannon with a penchant for cruelty. While Butler’s performance is exactly what it needs to be (with some nicely done prosthetic makeup adding to his imposing look), the character unfortunately comes off as a very dimensionally flat evil badass type, and other than two fairly well executed action set pieces (and lingering plot threads involving Lady Fenring for possible future instalments), he doesn’t offer too much of narrative interest. It must be said that this isn’t too far off what the source material’s Feyd-Rautha offers: the embodiment of an antagonistic obstacle, who motives and aspirations are somewhat obvious and lacking depth, but it’s dragged down more than it should given returning Rabban Harkonnen (Dave Bautista) already shares many of the same traits, and both feature in separate, yet similar recurring scenes demonstrating their personal melodramatic outbursts of cruelty (sometimes even in the same room in separate acts of the film). These types of recurring, similar scenes (which beset Dune (2021) too), also return by way of Paul’s prescient visions, one particular shot of a crawling figure, mouth open wide in agony comes to mind, among others. Scenes of the three Harkonnen nobles murdering unnamed extras to remind us for the umpteenth time that they hold little value in the lives of others (as if this wasn’t already made apparent in the opening narration of the first film). Scenes of Stilgar’s (Javier Bardem) constant proclamations of faith, “Lisan al Gaib”, “as writ​​!”, seemingly played for laughs without end. These repetitions do very little but to drag the otherwise much improved pacing of Dune: Part Two (2024) to a narrative halt, just to interject unneeded information and imagery that was already made apparent. Creatively, there are a number of likewise instances where Dune: Part Two (2024) takes a step or two forward, then a perplexing half step back. Shots of absolutely wonderful set design hosting dozens of immaculately framed Fremen are accompanied with some unfortunate instances of wooden dialogue, not entirely being sold their actors, which in most other scenes so far across this Dune duology have shown a very fair and clear way of conveying high concept ideas and emotive themes, making those fleeting disappointing moments sting a little more than they should.

The result of this is that those unlucky moments that should be very emotional gripping don’t always do their intentions justice. A passing dramatic moment might just not quite sell itself, despite very commendable acting, or it might almost reach an interesting thematic climax before disappointingly passing it off with the same “humorous” punchline (“as writ!”) for the third time in the last ten minutes. Alternatively, sometimes a really interesting filmmaking decision might unfortunately become more of a distracting element as time goes on, such as one of the opening action set pieces using an intense amount of overdone colour grading, where every frame looks like a variation on only the colour orange. To its credit, it justifies itself by using sequential phases of an eclipse as its light source. It’s certainly a unique addition to the visual nature of the scene, and does a really good job of detailing the passage of time, but the more it lingers, the more it might momentarily appear too washed out for a little too long, or feel like it would unintentionally obscure the framing of a silhouette, or blur the frenetic movement of a stunt. Something about that particular effect didn’t quite feel like it executed itself as fully as it wanted to, but the intention and reasoning behind its inclusion is clear, and otherwise it’s a very well done scene too, placing heavy emphasis on experiencing the point of view of multiple combatants on both sides. It’s satisfyingly tense, and does a great job at making everyone involved learn information about each respective side’s enemy, and take good and bad tactical decisions which clearly informs how the rest of the combat proceeds… but it’s also partly smeared in a garish orange haze and ends the entire set piece with a cliché “how many times must I tell you never to keep your back turned on the enemy?”. Again, two steps forward, one perplexing half step back.

Some choice moments like these might have been unavoidable, given scenes of more direct adaptation of fantastic-but-certainly-not-perfect source material, but that’s not to say the film doesn’t find some ways to benefit off the leap from page to screen. The rushed romance between Chani (Zendaya) and Paul definitely isn’t Dune’s most compelling plot thread, but Chani’s on-screen emotional journey is amplified and made more pleasingly complex by some precise narrative framing decisions regarding actions made by certain characters during the film’s climactic ending. Speaking of, Herbert’s Dune similarly ends almost immediately after its direct climax, and fortunately, Dune: Part Two (2024)’s own breakneck ending pulls that particular aspect off very well, likely aided by how that expectation was already there from Dune (2021)’s cut-to-credits-not-too-far-off-its-own-narrative-peak. All in all, it’s an exciting and cathartic cliffhanger that also intentionally leaves a delightful nugget of “uh oh” lingering for part three.

One interesting facet of the viewing experience were some of the audience reactions to specific thematic details. Many aspects of Dune: Part Two (2024) relate to themes of power, hypocrisy, and the ability (and inability) to recognise one’s own flaws, and the way these ideas are realised onscreen functionally play with the conventions of heroic adventure tales (something with which Herbert’s work is intimately familiar). The threads concerning Fremen religious fervour repeatedly detail how an occupied culture has been deliberately manipulated, their faculties of reason stunted purely for the benefit of their oppressors, their worldviews built on a lie. Though a sombre reflection of real world history, Herbert’s dark, poignant world building gets deliberately framed in Dune: Part Two (2024) under the guise of humour**, which the audience regularly seemed to accept at face value, even in moments where the façade of its droll undertone gives way, strangely, that would receive the biggest, most raucous laugh of the showing, the unmasked horror of Fremen suffering possibly being taken as a jab of dark humour. A similar thing occurred with the film's ending. Without spoiling anything, it’s dark. It’s horrifying. One particular pivotal character goes through, to put it lightly, a stark shift in demeanour, and the film ends with multiple stomach churning, awful actions and decisions: it’s the worst case scenario to the Atreides-Harkonnen conflict, but again, it’s framed in the light of a hero’s journey, so the UK IMAX audience (usually stoically silent in these kinds of screenings), couldn’t help let out a few hoots and hollers, cheering on the actions of a hypocritical, power hungry tyrant, just because the explosions were pretty, and the set pieces impressive. There is certainly a commendable element in that, at least in this fashion, the film has an expectation of audience maturity, and doesn’t always give out easy answers. This is more so interesting given that some more challenging elements of the source material are omitted altogether, though this is most likely, among other factors, to keep within a PG-13 rating and diminish the runtime where needed. The psychedelic sci-fi elements of Lady Jessica’s Water of Life trial and more fantasy-esque elements of her pregnancy are very simplified, their more psychological intricacies hand waved away with curt explanations. Similarly, Baron Harkonnen’s predatory nature and general examples of harm against children are completely omitted, for example.

**To clarify, this isn’t an issue. The ‘humour’ of Stilgar’s repeated and desperate religious antics are often told through the narrative point of view of those outside of his belief structure, the humoural addition could very well serve as an appropriate insight into how wrong or alien this belief is to Chani or Paul - the only issue is how often this same joke is played over and over with little intended variation.

Where this film truly shines is in its extravagant depiction of physical scale and mass, using a number of expressive techniques to really exaggerate distance and volume. Whether it’s a seemingly thousand kilometre stretch of unbroken Arrakis desert, or a ballooned Carryall straining and creaking while holding aloft a gargantuan sand harvester, many of the panoramic landscape and machinery shots achieve great success by accenting physically smaller details. Flowing and rushing sand is used most often, but things like glittering granules of spice in a dune sea, or the rough, cold, scratched surface of thick, dark metal, or tiny armoured soldiers marching alongside sand crawlers with nothing else but sand dunes and rock walls in sight, all accented with fun sound design choices that add to the atmosphere of each chosen location. The grand visual intentions supremely justifies itself, to the point that it would be significantly detrimental to the viewing experience to watch this film on anything other than the highest resolution possible, with no better example than Paul’s Sandworm trial (present in the trailer), which might be the best constructed event of the entire film. Starting slow, close, and intimate, it earns every step of its escalation, building to a triumphant climax that’s simple in premise, but excellent in execution. What uniquely makes it stand out is in putting fierce attention into Paul’s immediate sensory catharsis, and dragging the viewer in with him. The sheer sense of effort and battle-of-will of riding a Sandworm is brought to life so well in this scene, the tumultuous cascade of sand and how it deafens, how its torrent blinds, how it stings, how it buckles the weight of a body, how it takes time and prolonged struggle to even stand, the rough and varied textured skin of the sandworm, the anticipation leading up to the event, and the elation of being able to achieve what once seemed impossible. This is one of the key successes of this cinematic duology so far, the atmosphere in these films is just so all-encompassing, it actively bears down upon the viewer at all times, and given what was achieved in that first film it’s no surprise that Dune: Part Two (2024) is so visually stunning, but its consistency certainly is. It says a lot about a film’s visual aspect when certain shots stand out because they don’t look near-perfect, and only two in particular really come to mind, one pertaining to Paul’s prescient visions (the one including the crawling figure with an open mouth) which definitely wasn’t polished nearly as well as it could be, and another distractingly bizarre long take aerial CGI shot, filled with bland texturing and almost no background animation in places, that looked more akin to an admittedly high end video game cutscene than the very pronounced quality of the rest of the film’s visuals.

The sound design is another highlight of Dune: Part Two (2024), which carries over its signature combination of aggressive and pensive atmospheric characteristics from the first film. Hans Zimmer’s score is as dynamically intense as ever, providing an expansive, panoramic soundscape as appealing and intricate as its visual counterpart. From scratchy atmospheric textures that highlight the isolation of a desert landscape, to sonorous cello passages that detail a character at their lowest emotional state, to hard hitting assaults of noisy distorted guitar that embody the agonising trials a character must endure. The music is certainly felt throughout, but not in a way that’s overbearing or even really takes centre stage, it exists as a natural extension of the alien nature of Dune; the heavy sub-bass waves of Spice harvester and Sandworm rumbles and high transient impact of the Bene Gesserit Voice come to mind. Dune is felt more than heard, as it should be, really.

The elaborate adventure of Dune: Part Two (2024) might stumble occasionally, it’s by no means perfect, but where it's worth it, it sticks the landing with fair aplomb. It’s a story of hypocrisy, the corrupting nature of power, and being blind to one’s flaws. It probes ideas on the limits of what actions can be justified for the betterment of the many. It plays with the narrative ideals of speculative fiction as a whole, and concludes the adaptation of one of the most important, foundational works in its entire genre. Also, it’s got desert warriors riding giant worms into battle, so that might be of interest.