“Dune: Part Two” (2024) or “Girl, he be lying” is the second of Denis Villeneuve’s yet to be determined number of adaptations of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel series. The Fremen give refuge to Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), after the Emperor (Christopher Walken, squee!) permitted the house of Harkonnen to massacre the House of Atreides and retake the Fremen’s planet, Arrakis. Lady Jessica secures her survival by agreeing to accept the tribe’s offer to become the Fremen’s Reverend Mother, which makes her even more single-minded in validating the prophecy of Paul becoming the Kwisatz Haderach regardless of the cost to the Fremen or Paul’s humanity. Chani (Zendaya), the Fremen woman and freedom fighter of Paul’s dreams in “Dune: Part One” (2021), teaches the Fremen’s ways to Paul and other surviving Outworlders so they can survive and fight. While Chani and Paul have a relationship, she is skeptical whether he will permit himself to be risen above others and encourage the Fremen to enslave themselves to religious superstitions. When Paul and Chani’s attack on the House of Harkonnen becomes successful, and Beast Rabban (Dave Bautista) turns into a drooling, flop sweating mess, the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgard) decides to get a new overseer, Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler), whom the Bene Gesserit view favorably as more controllable than Paul. Feyd-Rautha proves to be a formidable foe, but Paul has not unleashed all his secret weapons.
While “Dune: Part One” (2021) was a cinematic meditation garden, “Dune: Part Two” establishes the formula of what to expect from Villeneuve’s “Dune” franchise: establish Paul in his most hospitable setting and getting acclimated to the next phase of his life, destroy it and then show Paul figuring out how to overcome it by leveling up, which usually means that his prophetic visions come true. In addition, both films open with the voiceover of his future love interest before they even meet, which happens during the denouement (it is not a spoiler if it appears in the trailers): Chani in Part One and Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh) in Part Two. Remember that Paul mentions the Princess in Part One as a strategy to reascend to power, while others scoff at his ambition so she is less a dream come true as a goal on his vision board.
“Dune: Part Two” is less of an ensemble film than the first film and more Timothee Chamalet’s film. The man boy is convincing as a guerrilla warrior though I kept wanting Paul and Chani to sing “For a Moment” while riding a sandworm because surely, I’m not the only one thinking about a Wonka-Dune crossover, but instead of magic and chocolate, it is psychic abilities and explosives. Paul’s time with the Fremen is so comparatively light-hearted that even sandworms feel less like a threat than cheering supporting characters in Paul’s inevitable ascent to the throne. (Are the sandworms ok? Hooks in flesh seem mean.) As Chamalet auditions for the remake of “Dances with Wolves” (1990), “The Last of the Mohicans” (1992), “The Last Samurai” (2003) in a film whose intent is to rebuke that narrative while executing it perfectly, only Chani’s gossip with her friends and constant calling Paul out on his bullshit saves the movie. In addition, Chani and her girlfriends deliver a speech about the difference between the Fremen of the North and the South: religious fundamentalism. In contrast, Stilgar (Javier Bardem), who is from the South, is an unwavering Paul as messiah devotee. Paul could take a shit, and Stilgar would say it is part of the prophecy.
If you are watching “Dune: Part Two” with the right mindset, i.e. from Chani’s point of view, you should be watching the film with growing dread and concerned about Paul, not cheering how everything is coming together. Jessica takes a back seat in this round except as a sinister, somewhat mad, backdrop. She is just as much of a victim of religious fundamentalism as Paul and a foreboding cautionary tale of what Paul could become if Paul does not resist the siren call of his visions. In many ways, it is the religious fundamentalism of the Fremen and the Bene Geserits, not the House of Harkonnen, that destroys the House of Atreides, including all its descendants. Paul is in “Hereditary” (2018) territory or more like Dani ruling Mereen in Season 4 of “Game of Thrones,” which was the series’ first and last chance to make her a convincing madwoman, but I digress (and am still peeved). Paul is not an innocent pawn. While he was messing with Chani, his eye has always been on revenge and getting power otherwise he would not be so focused on the Princess, a seemingly formidable character with an agenda independent from her father’s, but also finding herself in over her head once she sees the whole situation clearly.
Once a character seems destined to be unstoppable as the one, regardless of whether it is a good thing, the story becomes boring and broad. Does a movie really have to be two hours forty-six minutes long to understand that colonialism is bad, fundamentalism is bad, dehumanizing people into rats or gods is bad, etc.? Is it because Villeneuve’s visuals are so gorgeous that he is immune to accusations of the flattening of cinema in a way that the MCU isn’t? The narrative is so broad and predictable that without the visuals, a nap would be necessary, but the visuals are perfect, no notes. It is just hard to feel anything about the characters, who are more like archetypes.
Also the visuals can be perfect and trite. For example, the Harkonnen home planet, Giedi Prime, is a homage to Leni Riefenstahl and references the black and white archival news footage of Nazi Germany meets Taika Waititi’s Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale) portions of “Thor: Love and Thunder” (2022) with a dash of Roman colosseum gladiator contest aesthetics by way of “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2015). Gorgeous, but once seen, is Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler) an unexpected or predictable factor? Yawn. Also the casting director is brilliant because Butler is the exact person to cast against Chamalet so we can root for the latter against the guy that decided to retain the Elvis Presley accent long after the job was over. There is only one Elvis, and it is Jacob Elordi!
Even though the plot points may be intentional, sardonic takes on such tropes as the noble savage and the white savior, they simultaneously validate such tropes in the overt storyline. It is kind of like the think pieces on “Saturday Night Live” where a problematic political figure goes on the show and makes fun of themselves. Showing that you know something is problematic is not the same as not being a problem. Even though “Dune: Part Two” does better than its predecessor in critiquing these narrative tropes, Villeneuve is not doing the same work as Bong Joon-Ho’s “Snowpiercer” (2013) or “Parasite” (2019) where the audience expects one well-trod turn of events then subverts it by obliterating all expectations because the narrative is inherently flawed and needs to be flipped. Narratives like “Dune: Part Two” understand what is wrong but cannot imagine how to obliterate it or what being right would look like. Having Zendaya side-eye and scowl at everyone is a start, but not enough, especially if the audience does not get it. While it is obvious to those uninvested in Paul, many others are as invested in Paul’s ascendence unironically like Luke Sykwalker and relate to him.
It would have been cooler for “Dune: Part Two” to expand on the Jinn reference as demons possessing people who listen to them then make those parallels with the Water of Life or the Holy Poison.
