Dune: Part Two (2024) review

Dune: Part Two absolutely fucks so hard on every level. I saw it almost a week ago now for the first time and again earlier today, and I still feel like everything in my head about this is just “uhhh its so fucking awesome” and then my head explodes trying to think of anything smarter to say about this movie. 

Everything about Dune: Part Two, from top to bottom is phenomenal. It's a feast. Every single scene, every shot, every edit, every sound, every song, every set, every performance congeals perfectly into the most grand cinematic epic since probably The Lord of the Rings? It’s that good. 

Acting is incredible across the board, everyone returning from Part One is even better this time around, particularly Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem and Zendaya. Both of them bring incredible presence, commanding every scene they appear in. Timothee Chalamet once again is awesome as Paul Atreides. He perfectly communicates the push and pull between internal and external forces he is struggling with. My favorite performance has to be Austin Butler as Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, the best, baldiest, horniest little psychopath in the universe and exactly the energy and presence that the character required. Every time he’s onscreen, you can just tell that he’s so grossly horny for whatever is happening in front of him, making him insanely fun to watch while also making him the most menacing presence in any scene. 

Villeneuve’s knack for grand visual storytelling for itself, but where the movie shines for me is when characters convey feeling and motivation to each other through a look, a shift of the eyes or change in expression. One of the highlights of the entire movie for me is a tiny moment with Gurney Halleck during Paul’s speech to the Fremen after drinking The Water of Life. Since they were reunited after the Arrakeen siege in Part One, Gurney had been trying to convince Paul to use his status amongst the Fremen to get revenge on the Harkonnens for their destruction of the Atreides. The scene is paced perfectly, with Paul slowly implementing his persuasive abilities on the crowd, winning them over to his cause one by one by appealing to their culture and history. As the emotion in the room escalates, Paul takes out his father’s signet ring, which Gurney thought had been destroyed in the siege, it cuts from the ring in Paul’s hand to Gurney’s reaction and we see him gasp, and in that brief moment his face says more than an entire movie’s worth of dialogue. Gurney goes from loyal but jaded supporter of Paul to full-blown believer in a matter of moments. It’s a masterful synthesis of editing, acting, direction and writing, and every fucking moment of the movie is that good!

Stilgar's reactions to Paul start as charming and mildly comedic in the film's first act, but as the characters venture South, morph into terrifying, blind fanaticism in himself, and the Fremen as a whole. The last shot of Stilgar in Part Two reminds me of the final shot of Johnny Rico in Starship Troopers, leading a battalion onto a ship with bloodlust in his eyes as he yells propagandistic catchphrases to rile up his troops. The same Fremen who cherish every drop of water, going as far as to carefully drain the water from the bodies of dead Harkonnen soldiers in the first scene of the movie, by the end are burning the bodies of their enemies, a shot indistinguishable from one of the earliest shots in the movie, (maybe the very first?) of the Sardukar and Harkonnens burning piles of bodies of the massacred Atreides. The arc of Stilgar and the Fremen as a whole is a bleak warning not only of the dangers of religious fundamentalism and following charismatic leaders, but the erosion of an entire culture when whipped into a fanatical frenzy.

The landscape of Arrakis is a dynamic, constantly evolving environment that never gets boring despite spending to much time in desert and HOLY SHIT Giedi Prime?? Are you fucking kidding me?? Maybe the single best otherworldly environment ever put to film? I would kill for a movie that solely takes place on that weird, black and white, creepy BDSM planet that the Harkonnens live on, I could write an entire review just about that scene, both visually and how it sets up the dynamic between Feyd-Rautha and The Baron, explores Harkonnen culture, and the Bene Gesserit’s breeding plans, ugh it’s so good, and every scene is as jam packed with character development and nuances, and subtle world building details. 

The only problem that anyone could potentially raise with this movie is book-heads going “oo they changed this, wah they left this out,” and I can see that being a knee-jerk reaction from fans, but every time Dune: Part Two deviates from the source material it does so in service of streamlining the narrative of Frank Herbert’s gigantic novel into a nearly 3 hour movie that feels like its about 6 minutes long. "Dune" is a phenomenal book, but it needs some tinkering when it comes to making it a satisfying story in a visual medium, which was a hurdle that David Lynch’s 1984 Dune did not cross that Villeneuve leaps over with Part One and Two. 

As an adaptation of "Dune," it excels in everything it needs to while never allowing itself to bloat for the sake of cramming as much world building as possible. Where Lynch’s Dune emphasizes the weirdness, sacrificing the core of the story in service of the fantastical aesthetics, Villeneuve’s Dune allows the otherworldly to feel appropriately unique, minimalistic yet huge, while keeping in focus what makes Paul Atreides a fascinating, tragic protagonist. It expertly sets up and explains why Paul’s actions and the path he is taking is a terrible one that will inevitably lead to billions of deaths, but never feels like it is lecturing about the dangers of fanaticism; it always shows instead of tells, and in the process, allows Paul’s victories throughout the film to be as cathartic for the viewer as they are for him and his followers. It wins you over, like it wins over Paul and the Fremen, but it never lets you forget what the true implications of Paul’s actions are and how horrific and brutal the outcome will be. 

I’m gonna need another watch or two to solidify it as a 10/10, but c’mon, what the fuck else could you possibly get out of a movie that this doesn’t have? It’s definitely one of the best movies to come out of this decade, and easily the best movie of this scale to come out in the last 10, maybe 20 years. Movies this big this good don’t come out often. See it!!!