Every year mega-budget films race into theaters behind many who vocalize their unparalleled anticipation for one of the cornerstones of the cinematic landscape. In 2024, we won’t have to wait until the final quarter of the year to indulge in the biggest canvas and widest soundscape as we have with films such as Avatar, The Titanic, and The Lord of the Rings. This year, Dune: Part Two opens as we catch the scent of the forthcoming Spring, and few films of this caliber have had a chance to set the tone for the year. A project of this size, with this many stars, is typically reserved for Summer breaks and the final crescendo of the year that was, but Denis Villeneuve's newest would rather own headlines and coliseum-sized auditoriums. As it deserves coming off the unexpected smash hit of Dune: Part One.
Forty years ago, David Lynch compressed Frank Herbert's 'unadaptable' Dune into a mangled and messy compression of Herbert's vision. Now, four decades removed from Lynch’s dissatisfaction with his adaptation, Denis Villeneuve has a chance to fulfill his dream since before he picked up a camera. Unlike Lynch, Villeneuve has an opportunity to work in the ramparts of the second half of Herbert’s dense novel with a nearly three-hour epic. But like Lynch, Villeneuve can only do so much to make it an honorable refraction of Herbert’s fragments of corruption. With every chance to voyage into the depths of Herbert’s imagination, Villeneuve’s sequel becomes a showcase of true cinematic power, but it comes at a hefty cost.
Ripped from the binds of the novel, Dune: Part Two appears to be just as corruptible as any other blockbuster. The precision of Villeneuve’s patience continues here, but the mysteries the future has in store for Paul Atreides are literalized by a script with all the easy answers, and the editing has none of the punctuation to internalize the uncertainty of the narrative’s sizable developments.
At this point, it should not be an issue to understand who Denis Villeneuve is as a filmmaker and what his style does to his characters. Regardless of what his skeptics say about him, his films exemplify the uncontrollable slope of knowledge and the power gained from it. Much like we’ve seen in Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, his characters are propelled into situations that are initially beyond their control. The deeper they get into the recesses of their respective conflicts, the more they appear to control their fate. In the case of Arrival, Louise is plagued by an abstract future that acts as feelings from the past. She learns that this future is something she can control by embracing it. For my money, this is the template for Denis to work through when tackling Paul's uncertainty about becoming the messianic Lisan Al Gaib.
Paul’s visions of the future as he winds through the desert with the native Fremen of Arrakis, burden him with the tasks that grip all potential leaders. Villeneuve navigates this through a safe first act as Paul becomes one with the Fremen by embracing their culture, identities, and rituals to fight in the war beside them. His rise is influenced by his Bene Gesserit mother, Lady Jessica, and the conflicted Fremen divided by the arrival of their potential savior. Paul’s growth is well documented, if not bordering on tedium, but the more gentle moments of cultural embrace unveil an internalized emotion worth pondering over the first hour. The strengths in the minutiae are carried over from the first film, and the characters being enveloped by their oppression bear on the little things that broaden the scope of the image. The revelations that come to realization have a punch, a legitimate shock that their future concerns have found a present moment that has taken everything from them. Here, the first act promises more of the same, but the script is much too generous to the audience as the film pivots to a brazenly obvious reflection of what is to come.
Dune: Part One felt certain of the choices made to tell a secular portion of the Atreides’ downfall compared to Part Two’s reemergence of the bloodline. Paul is established as 'The One', but Herbert’s text intends to demystify the radicalization that springs from prophetic remarks left open to interpretation of them. We have the opportunity to see this over the first hour, but as we turn to the villainous Harkonnen homeworld of Giedi Prime, the internal conflict the story is supposed to have is stripped away. The Harkonnens are savage imperialists, and Villeneuve makes it clear they are easily fooled by the grand showmanship of their most brutal contenders for the sake of entertainment. Radicalized by blood, entertainment, and inky fireworks, the Harkonnens burst with adulation for their hero. This tenacity is disruptive compared to Paul becoming embraced by the Fremen, but it doesn’t instigate the push and pull the narrative should have. Villeneuve and (cinematographer) Greig Fraser illuminate the contrast as they step into the umbra of an eclipse, but you have to wonder if they respect the audience's attention. The fidelity may garner a semblance of inspiration, but it is evocative of storytellers being unsure the audience can see what is right in front of them.
The film is edited in favor of a reflective duality that is too spaced out to be conflicting, and it could be fixed if Paul’s messianic rise was frequently disrupted by the deliberate string-pulling. The narrative pressure that an extreme point-of-view would provide loses steam, and we’re left to take it as it is without further consideration of what lies within the spaces good conflict should offer. There is little room for interpretation because it is deliberately staged to cater to the most obvious understanding of the material, and the audience is captivated by the barest presentation of fundamentalist ideals. The camera should be in conversation with the literal translation of the text, but it fails to generate momentum beyond the spectacle. In many regards, it has a breadth of scope but little wonder and even less for the audience to interrogate. No story burdened with religious fanaticism, prophecy, and a protagonist anchored by the obscure passages of the future should be this easy to agree with.
That isn’t to say we “agree” with the methods of acting on irrationally blind faith, but if the camera doesn’t allow us to toss and turn over the thoughts that plague the protagonists, then the only solution is to agree with the developments. This happens because there is a vivid disinterest in obfuscating the sudden turns that litter and spoil a third act stripped of statements to make about any questions we may have had. After all, so few were set up to knock us down. The pace at which we’re asked to register new information is so fast we don’t have an opportunity to live in denial. This is a vital aspect of meeting the film on its terms if it has established any worth agreeing to or potentially denying. And when Dune: Part Two fails to provoke the individual experience of the audience, how are we to become anything other than a fanatic toward the film? If the film doesn’t ask us questions about how we feel, why should we question it?
For how potent Dune: Part One was, it is astonishing that Part Two has all of the visual representation of the material’s blueprints without the infrastructure for us to rebuke Paul Atreides as Herbert did. Dune: Part Two is simply too passive of a film for the type of ascension Paul steps toward as he gains absolute power, and for Villeneuve, Fraser, and Jon Spaihts (screenwriter) to submit to a perspective that is neither for, against, interrogative, provocative, or challenging, is the most spellbinding aspect of the movie. It may be easy to get lost in the aura of a world unlike any we’ve ever seen, but there is an astounding lack of conviction on Denis Villeneuve’s part. Especially when you consider how well he has handled that before.
It’s difficult not to get won over by Dune: Part Two as a massive film with a stunning lead performance from Timothee Chalamet, but the visage of his character isn’t explored with the urgency and conflict that is essential to his arc. Rather, it is left to an audience that can’t be trusted to comprehend the metaphorical significance of zealots colonizing Eastern worlds with a level of nuance worthy of an intellectual conversation. For Dune to be one of the most vital works of science fiction about pre-ordained futures in the hands of extremists and radicals, the film is primed to be a movie of the moment. Instead, it is a disappointing movie that offers minimal introspection thanks to its inability to resist the fanatics who are won over by anything if you leave little room for interpretation.