- UK release: March 2024
- Director: Denis Villeneuve · Writers: Denis Villeneuve, Jon Spaihts
- Studio / distributor: Legendary Pictures; Warner Bros.
- Genre: Epic science fiction / space opera · Runtime: 166 minutes (BBFC 15)
- Main cast: Timothée Chalamet (Call Me by Your Name, Dune) as Paul Atreides; Zendaya (Spider-Man: Homecoming, Dune) as Chani; Rebecca Ferguson (Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation) as Lady Jessica; Austin Butler (Elvis) as Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen; Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men, Skyfall) as Stilgar
- IMDb: 8.5 / 10 · Rotten Tomatoes: 92% critics / 95% audience · My rating: 9 / 10
Denis Villeneuve made a choice with the first Dune that few directors would have risked: he adapted half a book, stopped on a cliff edge, and trusted that a studio would let him finish. Two and a bit years on, the gamble has paid off, because Dune: Part Two is the half everyone was waiting for. The 2021 film was largely table-setting, a sombre tour of houses and politics that ended just as the story started to move. This is where the desert finally opens up, the worms get ridden, and the holy war that the first film kept hinting at stops being a threat and becomes a plan.
The setup
Paul Atreides has lost his father, his house and his home, and survives in the deep desert of Arrakis as a guest of the Fremen, the people the galaxy has spent centuries underestimating. He learns their ways, earns a place among them, and grows close to Chani, a young fighter who has no patience for outsiders or prophecies. The trouble is that a prophecy is exactly what some of the Fremen want him to be. As Paul is pulled towards the role of a messiah he is not sure he wants, House Harkonnen tightens its grip on the spice, and the Emperor who engineered the fall of the Atreides watches from a safe distance. Paul has to decide how far he will go to take his revenge, and what it will cost everyone if he does.
The cast
Chalamet carries the heavier load this time, and he is up to it. The wary, grieving boy of the first film hardens into something colder and more certain, and the most unsettling thing in the picture is watching the warmth drain out of him as the role he is being handed starts to fit. Zendaya, given almost nothing to do last time, is the conscience of the film here: Chani is the one person who sees the messiah business for the trap it is, and the romance works precisely because she keeps refusing to be a footnote in someone else’s legend. Rebecca Ferguson makes Lady Jessica genuinely frightening, a mother turned zealot whispering the prophecy into being. The two newcomers earn their billing. Austin Butler buries the Elvis charm entirely as Feyd-Rautha, a smooth, reptilian sadist who is the most watchable villain the series has produced. And Javier Bardem brings an unexpected streak of humour as Stilgar, a true believer whose faith reads as both moving and slightly alarming.
The craft
This is filmmaking on a scale that almost nobody else is attempting. Greig Fraser shoots Arrakis as a place of real heat and weight, and the now-famous black-and-white sequence on the Harkonnen homeworld of Giedi Prime, lit by an alien sun that drains all colour, is the kind of idea most blockbusters would never find room for. Hans Zimmer’s score does not so much accompany the film as bear down on it, all groaning bass and processed voices, and in a properly equipped cinema you feel it in your chest. The first worm-riding sequence is the set piece the whole series has been building towards, and Villeneuve stages it for awe rather than noise, letting the sheer size of the thing do the work. At 166 minutes the film is long and unhurried, but it never feels slack; Joe Walker’s editing trusts the audience to sit in the silences.
How it stacks up
The obvious comparison is The Empire Strikes Back, the rare middle chapter that deepens and darkens everything around it, and Part Two belongs in that conversation. It is doing something the first Dune could not: it has the emotional payoff that all the earlier world-building was earning. The other touchstone is Lawrence of Arabia, which Villeneuve clearly has in his bones, from the desert vistas to the uneasy story of an outsider who becomes a figurehead for a people’s war and is half-consumed by it. Against the Lord of the Rings films it shares the ambition and the patience, though it is colder and less interested in comfort. What it has that David Lynch’s 1984 version never managed is coherence: this is a Dune you can follow, and feel, without a glossary.
Critics versus the rest of us
The reviews are close to rapturous, with critics sitting around 92% and audiences a notch higher at 95%, and for once the enthusiasm is earned rather than reflexive. The few reservations are familiar ones: it is solemn, it is long, and it assumes you have done the homework of the first film. Some viewers find Villeneuve’s gravity airless and miss the pulp fun a space opera might offer. I take the point and disagree with the conclusion. The seriousness is the texture; this is a story about prophecy and manipulation, and a jokier film would have nothing to say about either.
Verdict
This is science fiction made by people who believe the genre deserves to be taken as seriously as any other, and who have the craft to back the belief up. It is the rare sequel that makes its predecessor better in hindsight, a film of real scale and real ideas that never mistakes scale for substance. It rewards a rewatch, it works completely as the desert epic it sets out to be, and it is the most purely cinematic experience of the year so far. The world-building, the atmosphere and that crushing wall of sound are exactly the things I most want from the genre. 9⁄10.
Availability: On general release in UK cinemas now. See it on the largest IMAX screen you can reach; the scale and the sound are the point of the exercise.
Update
Added since this review first appeared: a third film, Dune: Messiah, is in development with Villeneuve and most of the principal cast set to return, adapting the more troubling second Herbert novel that this film already nods towards in its closing turn. Part Two has settled comfortably into its standing as one of the defining blockbusters of the decade and a high-water mark for big-screen science fiction. It is now available on 4K Blu-ray and digital, and streams on the Warner platforms depending on your region; a worthwhile home watch, though it loses something away from a proper cinema sound system.
BBFC content advice
Rated 15 by the BBFC for moderate violence, bloody images, threat. The notes below may contain spoilers.
Violence: In a scene which includes bloody detail, a villain slashes one woman’s neck and stabs another. A man fights several opponents in an arena, using blades to slash and stab them. There are also scenes of battle violence which include stabbings, shoot outs and hand-to-hand combat. Men and women are occasionally shown bloodied in the aftermath of violence.
Threat and horror: Moderate threat includes gun and knife threat. There are also intense battle sequences, and scenes in which characters must confront monstrous giant worms.
Language: Language includes uses of ‘shit’, ‘piss’, ‘moron’ and ‘hell’.
Sex: A group of women plot to control a man, who they describe as ‘sexually vulnerable’. There is a scene in which it is implied an embracing couple have just had sex. A woman entices a man into her bedroom under false pretences.
Drugs: There are occasional references to the hallucinogenic properties of a fictional substance, and scenes in which characters under its influence experience visions and convulse.
Theme: People grieve for a man who has been carried back to his land to be laid to rest.
Flashing/flickering lights: This work contains flashing images which may affect viewers who are susceptible to photosensitive epilepsy.
Source: British Board of Film Classification (bbfc.co.uk).
