‘Dune: Part Two’: Sand-filled vision of Arrakis continues to work on a massive scale
For starters, I can’t believe director Denis Villeneuve pulled off the big scene in “Dune: Part Two” in which Timothée Chalamet learns to ride the world’s largest pool noodle.
True, the story of “Dune” offers some built-in possibilities for success with such a potentially ridiculous scene. This two-hour, 46-minute continuation of the 2021 “Dune” is the sandiest movie since “Lawrence of Arabia.” This means whirlwinds and sandstorms worthy of Frank Herbert’s massive hunk of trippy science fiction lit, which in turn means lots of dramatic visual texture — all the better to disguise as well as complement the sequel’s extraordinarily sophisticated blend of digital and practical design elements.
As the budding anti-colonialist revolutionary Paul Atreides, Chalamet risks life, limb and career embarrassment, faking like he’s getting his balance against considerable headwinds and near-zero visibility atop a particularly gargantuan sandworm on the move. He’s clobbered with everything the sound designer, the composer, the editor, the cinematographer and the effects armies have created, and it’s chaotic bordering on “Wait, what am I looking at?”
And then a smile comes over your face because the scene is actually working, and you believe it. There are many flights of fancy in director David Lynch’s certifiably insane 1984 “Dune,” but in that one, the “ride ’em, wormboy!” scene does not work. This one works, because Villeneuve and his tiptop digital and practical design wizards are the best we have working in modern movies.
But these first two “Dune” films really are gorgeous. They don’t look or behave like any comparable, massively budgeted contemporary studio enterprise, whether it’s a Marvel or a “Star Wars” derivative.
Now: Is “Dune: Part Two” my thing? Does the bloody fall of House Atreides and the vengeful rise of messiah-in-training Paul Atreides, played by Chalamet; the battle for domination over the spice harvesting business on the desert planet Arrakis; and the machinations of the Emperor of the Universe (Christopher Walken, but of course we knew that already) and his daughter Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh) amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world? And what about the political and romantic alliance between Paul and Chani, the fierce Fremen warrior fighting for her people? Chani is once again played by Zendaya, who actually has things to do and say in “Dune: Part Two.” Javier Bardem returns, too, with an expanded presence, as Fremen leader Stilgar, heading the revolt against the invading Harkonnen.
With a different filmmaker I’d say no, not my
space jam. I read the first “Dune” novel only in prep for the 2021 film, and I fought it most of the way. But director and co-writer Villeneuve, whose previous works include, on the high end, “Incendies” (2010) and “Arrival” (2016), uses the screen to imagine technological and otherworldly amazements, and treat them matter-offactly. A movie can strip source material for parts, and its own needs, and still capture its essence. When the dragonfly-styled helicopters known as ornithopters reappear for duty in “Dune: Part Two,” they’re just as terrific as they were in “Dune 1.”
The sequel features more and larger battles and mayhem, though it also features lots of murmuring strategy in extremely dark corridors. Among the new wrinkles: There’s an old-school scene of Austin Butler’s Feyd-Rautha, the nephew of the unsightly Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgard), in gladitorial-style combat against three surviving Atreides soldiers. It’s part of a section in the movie depicted in monochrome blackand-white. That’s life under a black sun — a cinematographer’s dream! (The inspired Greg Fraser returns as director of photography on “Dune: Part Two,” along with all the other key visual collaborators from the 2021 success.)
Take away all the larger power plays, and at heart the movie’s a study in how the younger generation, nearly 11,000 years in the future, is still learning to maneuver around their know-it-all elders. Like Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson enjoys a larger share of the storyline this time. As Lady Jessica, the now-widowed pregnant mother of Paul, she communicates telepathically with her newborn daughter while movin’ on up to the Bene Gesserit order of mystics who foresaw Paul’s destiny before anyone else in the universe. She’s pushing her kid to fulfill that destiny; meantime the oil-slicked blob Baron Harkonnen sees in his nephew (Butler) a bloodthristy psychotic — we know this because on first reference, someone says “he’s psychotic” — and the logical heir to his corner of the universe.
This isn’t Butler’s biggest screen role to date, but it’s his most effective by a long shot, and he gives the sludgier passages of “Dune: Part Two” a needed jolt. Also, it’s very gratifying for a film so dependent on digital effects to lean into more traditional methods for a firstrate duel between Feyd-Rautha and Paul, staged, edited and executed like something out of Act 5 of “Hamlet.”
What we have here, in the end, doesn’t end anything — no film in which the last lines include “the holy war begins!” could pretend otherwise. This is a middle-chapter installment, landing on the same note of “to be continued, if business is good” as the previous “Dune.” What Villeneuve and company achieve in “Dune: Part Two” is every bit as impressive and, in its peak imagery, hypnotic as part one. And, yes, frustrating. Even fans have to concede that Villeneuve’s facility for cinematic movement has its limitations (glaring in the dull finale of “Blade Runner 2049,” for example).
So “Dune: Part Two” is not a zingy marvel of narrative momentum. But it’s not trying for that. Rewatching the 2021 movie earlier this week reminded me of just how much of an aesthetic outlier Villeneuve is these days. He shows us sights to behold, truly and consistently. As for Chalamet, he remains effective in his murmuring-brook way. It’s a mite low-key for the character’s circumstances, as well as for the movie’s massivity. On the other hand, he’s easy to take, and the “Boy from the Outer World” has a lot on his mind, which is plagued by horrifying psychic visions of what’s to come if “Dune 3” gets the go-ahead.