Dune: Part Two filmmaker Denis Villeneuve, to me, is the sort of guy who likes to bite off more than he can theoretically chew with his projects. That’s left him as a director whose work I respect more than I enjoy–stuff like Arrival and the first Dune movie are impeccably crafted, but they work more on a vibes level than an academic one.
But I knew he was capable of making something that hit me in both my brain and my heart, because he nailed it a decade ago with his first big Hollywood studio movie, Prisoners. And Dune: Part Two is Villeneuve’s first film since that one to really work for me in that same overall way. It’s still longer than it probably needs to be–it drags in the mid-section, like so many long movies do–but it’s still a big step up from the first one.
Dune: Part Two picks up directly from the end of the first movie, with the Harkonnens once again in charge of the spice harvesting operations on Arrakis, and with Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) and his magical Bene Gesserit mother Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) hiding out with the Fremen. But they don’t hide for long–they’ve got a war to wage against the Harkonnens, and the chatter about Paul being a messiah-type figure isn’t quieting down.