Dune, Denis Villeneuve’s rip-roaring, planet-hopping sci-fi epic adapted from the first half of Frank Herbert’s 1965 tome of the same name, was an easy film to like but, for me at least, a difficult film to love. When I first saw it – as soon as I feasibly could after its release in the autumn of 2021, and on the biggest screen I could find – I was dazzled by its epic scale and sumptuous rendering of otherworldly landscapes, but there was something missing: the characters, as played by a mostly glacial Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin and Charlotte Rampling all seemed to be keeping the audience at an emotional remove. You were fascinated by them, yet it was hard to care for them – they were like plastic action figures who moved across this glittering, mind-bending world. So, while I marvelled at the costumes, the sprawling sets and the brutal battle sequences, when – spoiler alert – Isaac’s Leto Atreides perished, I was more miffed than devastated.
Dune: Part Two, however, takes everything up a notch. The long-awaited sequel, on the heels of a predecessor which helpfully provided all the necessary build up, is able to cram itself with glorious, no-holds-barred action, but the most remarkable thing about it is that it nails the emotional beats, too. The result is one of the best action blockbusters I’ve seen in years – and I’d be stunned if it doesn’t go on to become a billion-dollar box office hit and win at least a handful of Oscars come 2025.
The story kicks off where Dune left off, with Chalamet’s Paul Atreides and his mother, Ferguson’s Lady Jessica, joining the Fremen – among them Javier Bardem’s tribe leader Stilgar and Zendaya’s fierce warrior Chani – as they traverse the undulating deserts of Arrakis. The visuals are stunning – expansive plains, the sun sliced by multiple eclipses – and as we settle into our new environment, Paul finds his feet among his new family, and promptly falls for Chani.
Zendaya, who was criminally underused in the first film with just seven minutes of screen time, finally gets her due here: steely and ferocious, generous and protective of her new protégé and love interest, she is the undisputed heart of Dune: Part Two, and the character you grow to love the most. You believe her and Paul as you see them grow closer, and then you sense her growing unease as he is proclaimed a messiah and rises the ranks to lead her people into a perilous battle against the nefarious forces that plotted against his family and killed his father.
The film navigates this shift in Paul and Jessica’s trajectories, from our heroes to more fearsome, ambitious and ambiguous figures hellbent on revenge – two supremely powerful white figureheads compelling crowds of people of colour to join them in their holy war – nimbly, for the most part. As in Dune, this film, particularly in its ornate costuming and set design, takes freely from African and Middle Eastern cultures, though it seems more aware of what it’s doing this time around. While many of the Fremen bow down to their new saviours, Chani refuses to. “This prophecy,” she says of the belief that only Paul can lead them to freedom, “is how they enslave us.” The camera fixes on her face, you feel her intense fear for the future of her community, and realise that your own allegiances have changed, too. It’s a theme that’s sure to generate discourse, but one which seemed to me to be too self-aware to feel problematic.
The exciting thing about Dune: Part Two is that it can do all of this without ever skimping on the action, either. As Paul and the Fremen prepare for their assault against the evil Harkonnens, there’s one breathless sequence in which he and Chani team up for an explosive strike. There’s also another in which Paul rides a sandworm for the first time – sprinting across the peaks of the sand dunes, latching on, and then holding on for dear life. Watching that scene, even on a smaller, non-IMAX screen like the one in my preview screening, was akin to boarding a rocket ship and being blasted into space. It’s simply staggering.
After that highest of highs, the final battle and Paul’s confrontation with the heir of House Harkonnen, Feyd-Rautha (a cruel, deathly pale, eyebrow-less Austin Butler), feels a tad anti-climactic, unaided by a two-hour-and-forty-five-minute run time that drags slightly in its final moments. There’s also an overly self-serious campiness to Dune: Part Two that’s frequently delightful – something almost James Bond-esque, particularly in Bardem’s quippy new take on Stilgar – but at a few points, it tips entirely into parody. Butler for one, with his raspy, still-slightly-Elvis-like voice is too comical to be a truly terrifying villain or a credible threat to Paul.
Sadly, the other new additions to the cast get short shrift, too: Florence Pugh makes for a striking and intelligent Princess Irulan, the daughter of the emperor (a similarly underutilised Christopher Walken), but is given little more to do than look regal and concerned; while the always excellent Léa Seydoux has a small, Bond girl-style role as the mysterious Lady Margot Fenring. Anya Taylor-Joy also appears far too briefly in her much-buzzed-about secret cameo but, as was the case for Zendaya in Dune, you get the sense that these women will be given more space to breathe as this sci-fi saga continues.
And continue it almost certainly will: Dune: Part Two ends on something of a cliffhanger, and one which expertly whets your appetite for yet more desert showdowns, galloping sandworms, and knotty character development. Does it have its shortcomings? Certainly, but it’s also easily one of the best cinematic experiences you’re likely to have this year.
Dune: Part Two will be in cinemas from 1 March.