‘Dune Part 2’: An Epic, Brilliant Psychedelic Space Trip

The greatest cinematic one-two punch of the 21^st century, Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part One and Dune: Part Two make for a dynamite diptych—wise, weird, wild and wonderful, a psychedelic work of sci-fi mythology lovingly adapted from Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel and sprawling, in total, over nearly six sumptuous hours.

Above all, in its return to the desert planet of Arrakis, Part Two offers more: more string-pulling Bene Gesserit, more scheming royalty, more sadistic Harkonnen, more messianic manipulations, more weirding ways, more prophetic visions, more battlefield conflagrations, more seismic explosions—this time nuclear—and so, so, so many more gigantic toothy worms. There’s nothing like getting granular on a planet made of sand, and Part Two makes sure to include even the smallest details of desert life.

DUNE PART TWO ★★★★★ (5/5 stars)
Directed by: Denis Villenueve
Written by: Denis Villeneuve, Jon Spaihts
Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista, Christopher Walken, Léa Seydoux, Stellan Skarsgård, Charlotte Rampling, Javier Bardem
Running time: 167 mins

Take how the resourceful Fremen people drain their defeated foes’ bodies of all moisture before conjuring the Shai-Hulud with thumpers to devour piles of dehydrated corpses. “Filthy water—full of chemicals,” explains tribal leader Stilgar (Javier Bardem) after sucking dry another Harkonnen soldier. Not good for drinking, but still a precious commodity. It’s a prime example of the Fremen’s efficiency, ingenuity and pragmatic extremities. And it encapsulates Villeneuve’s priorities as a storyteller—a superfluous detail that doesn’t advance the plot, but resonates throughout the film.

Part One, by design, was a grand-tableau origin story that went deliberately unfinished, with a whimper of a coda that doubled as prelude. Part Two is far more substantial, picking up almost seamlessly where its predecessor left off and clearly reveling in the presumption that its audience is already in the know. There’s still exposition—this time with a healthy assist from journaling devotée Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh, pouty and coiled). But there’s also a darker, more expansive exploration of Herbert’s ideas about conquest and empire that permeate the ether just like Arrakis’ essential mineral, the spice mélange that fuels interstellar travel.

“Power over spice is power over all,” an unidentified basso profundo voice declares as the film starts. We learn that the Harkonnens’ surprise slaughter of Duke Atreides and his people—secretly executed with the full knowledge and covert consent of the Padishah Emperor Shaddam VI (a weary-eerie Christopher Walken)—went virtually unreported throughout the universe. Such is the calculus of power, with the Harkonnens seizing the means of spice production in return for obliterating the Emperor’s main rival.

But the Duke’s son Paul (young pup Timothée Chalamet) remains alive, hiding among the Fremen with his Bene Gesserit mother Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson, quietly ferocious). “This world is beyond cruelty,” Paul mutters, while Jessica, ever calculating, encourages him to conjure his inner messiah while she becomes the Fremen’s Reverend Mother. She wants Paul to embrace the age-old prophesies and lead the Fremen to vengeful victory. Paul, who adopts the tribal name Muad’Dib, wants to win their loyalty and trust through humility—especially Chani (Zendaya), with whom he develops a budding romance.

Ever shrewd, Chani sees what Jessica wants and rejects it. “You want to control people? Tell them a messiah will come,” she sneers. That’s just fine with Stilgar, who yearns for a savior and has seen Paul’s potential from the moment he arrived. Paul rejects the overtures and modestly demurs. “The messiah is too humble to say that he is the messiah,” Stilgar smiles with excitement.  And Jessica, salivating over the prospects of planetary domination, hits the road via palanquin to whip up support for her son. “There are millions of fundamentalists south,” she says, eager to spread the word she helped to fabricate.

What’s so thrilling about Part Two is how the story processes the notion of a religious figurehead—how someone can sway the vulnerable and the weak, seducing the faithful into becoming throngs of warmongering jihadists. Jessica knows the only way they can wield power to rival the Emperor’s is to lean into the mystical and exploit other people’s superstitions for their own political gain.

Helping matters are the witchy supernatural abilities she wields and consolidates—especially when the Fremen have her drink Arrakis’ holy poison, the blue liquid they extract from baby sandworms, otherwise known as the Water of Life. And imbibing it grants paranormal visions that unlock one’s genetic memory. “You will see the beauty and the horror,” Jessica says. Such a drink is tortuous for women and fatal for men—unless, like Paul, your bloodlines bring you the potential to become the Chosen One, otherwise known as the Kwisatz Haderach. And if, like Jessica, you also happen to be pregnant, then its consumption will allow you to conduct probing geopolitical conversations with your consciousness-expanded unborn child.

Part Two overflows with palace intrigue, including a subplot that involves Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård) grooming his sadistic nephew Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler) to become governor of Arrakis—just as the Bene Gesserit also turn their eyes to him as the means to an alternate Kwisatz Haderach, sending sexy Lady Margot Fenring (Léa Seydoux) to seduce him, collect his seed, and identify the psychological levers by which they can control him.

But all this talk belies the film’s overwhelming asset: its visual cornucopia of mind-blowing set pieces, whether it be sneak attacks on spice mining equipment, Evil troops menacingly floating in a diagonal line along a mammoth rock formation, or the billowing interplay of shadow and light in the corridors of power. Even a throwaway embellishment adds perverse wonder: the Harkonnen version of fireworks are oily bursts of black liquid that splurt in the skies over Giedi Prime festivities. That planet’s black sun bathes its surface with monochromatic light, accentuating the Harkonnens’ milky white skin and pitch-black wardrobes.

And we haven’t even gotten to the wormriding: Paul’s final initiation into the Fremen ways requires him to summon a sandworm and hook space-age pick axes into its scaley flesh for a makeshift harness that allows him to stand and essentially hang ten on the gargantuan beast. It’s the first of many wormriding scenes, and Villeneuve’s immersive filmmaking—especially in IMAX—is pure bombastic brilliance. So, too, the dialogue, which provides haiku-worthy insights like “Our resources are limited; fear is all we have” along with chuckle-worthy clunkers like “I know where your father hid the family atomics.”

The success of both Dune films rests on the shoulders of Paul Atreides, and Chalamet’s boyish intensity continues to be a deliberately strange mix. His mopey emo act fits like a glove, as do his impetuous outbursts of unmodulated rage. They feel childish in their self-righteousness, and only underline the uneasy way he finds himself becoming the great spiritual figurehead of millions on Arrakis and potentially billions across the galaxy.

This is not the natural-born swagger of a future icon; it’s the prickly charisma of a manufactured messiah. And that’s when Paul feels most like a weary, alienated aristocrat whose exposure to mind-altering substances and training as a sorcerer has given him the confidence of his informed convictions—but not the ego to carry them with comfort. At the end, in a thrilling climax of domination, he insists that the wizened Emperor kiss his ring. Does he deliver a transfixing, self-assured monologue? No. He silently stomps his foot like a brat.

Mysteries remain in Villeneuve’s two-part masterpiece, greatest of all being Paul’s unborn sister, who makes a brief, beguiling eleventh-hour appearance in a premonition that reveals her as an adult—played by an uncredited Anya Taylor-Joy. You don’t just drop in an almond-eyed ethereal beauty like Taylor-Joy unless you have grand plans for her. Same goes for Pugh, whose supporting turn here feels largely ceremonial throughout until a climactic strategic alliance points to greater things in store. Although all of Herbert’s original novel is on screen, the director has talked about his wish to elongate his epic accomplishment into a trilogy by adapting Herbert’s sequel, Dune Messiah. After watching both movies, that third film feels essential. How else to process Part Two, which ends with the words: “The Holy War begins.” It’s the ultimate cosmic tease.