A week before the movie was released, every critic on social media said that Dune: Part Two is one of the best sci-fi movies they’ve seen, and after watching the movie we can both agree that the critics were correct. Dune: Part Two is an intense, fast-paced movie, filled with epic battle scenes and forces rallying on both sides.
For context, Dune: Part Two is placed on the desert planet Arrakis, where the Emperor helped the richest great house, the Harkonnen, eliminate the Atreides. Without them knowing, the son of the Duke of the Atridies, Paul, escapes with the “concubine” of the Duke, Jessica, though she is the secret wife of the Duke. They escape to the open desert and encounter freemen, after Paul and Jessica prove their worth they are accepted into their society.
The lovers of action movies and “epic battles” will find Dune: Part Two a vast improvement over the first, as in the second part of the first book Paul becomes a religious figure, inciting the Jihad, or Great Holy War. This movie depicts the rising of this small poor population destroying the Emperor’s most esteemed fighters and the Harkonnen legacy in a single day. The people who loved the trippy cinematography, and mystical images of the first movie won’t be disappointed, as if anything this movie gets more religious. This shows much of Paul deciding to follow his mother and recruit an army of the Fremen as the Lisan-Al-Gaib.
The love of Paul and Chani is tested in the second movie. It is proved that the love is deeper and heart-wrenching love, as the struggle on opposite sides of the Fremen argument as Paul gives in his advisors makes him power-hungry. Though this movie does lend itself to some excessive showmanship, and many brutal actions and images. Some scenes are unnecessarily brutal with screaming and people killing their men at will.
The acting in this movie is great with Timothee Chalamet showing why the role of Paul Atreides wouldn’t work without him. Even with the small amount of screen time, some characters had Denis Villeneuve found a way to flesh their characters out and make their motives and goals clear. At no point did it feel like this movie was too long even with it being thirty minutes longer than the first movie. The VFX never felt weird or low quality.
The amount of love and care for the source material from the cast and crew showed in Dune: Part Two making it one of the best sci-fi movies ever made.