Dune Part Two: Where Does it Go From Here?

After finishing both “Dune: Part One” and “Dune: Part Two,” I couldn’t help but want more. Both films left me on the edge of my seat, ending with cliffhangers about what’s to come for the next movies. That being said, the review to follow is mixed and might leave a sour taste in the mouth of some readers. Fair warning, there will be spoilers. 

The Bad

I’d like to start with what I did not like about Part Two. My biggest critique is that this movie was incredibly long — two hours and 46 minutes — especially considering it’s the second installment of a trilogy. There were a lot of scenes that could have been cut from the movie as they were useless in developing the plot and felt more like fillers that did not need to be there.

The time from those unnecessary scenes could have been used to lengthen other scenes of note, specifically the final battle between the Fremen, Imperial Forces, and the Harkonnen. The battle felt rushed, and the Fremen defeated the Harkonnen and the Sardaukar with an unrealistic ease. 

With the Harkonnen coming in hot with elite soldiers and masses of weapons, compared to the Fremen being led by teenagers and other dogmatic fighters, you would think the Harkonnen would put up more of a fight.

However, one standout scene for me was the fight scene between Feyd-Rautha and Paul, which was spectacular, especially seeing Paul nearly succumb to his enemy. Though the movie depicted Feyd-Rautha as a psychopathic murderer, it seemed that he was almost pushed to the side and not nearly as relevant as he should be, which was confusing, to say the least. 

What also confused me was how he seemed to have honor for whom he was fighting, as he did in the arena on his birthday as well as in the final fight with Paul. Harkonnen’s are portrayed as bloodthirsty killers, yet the movie gives an honorable spin on the cannibalistic lunatic.

There really was no further explanation as to why they did this in the film, but there wasn’t a lot of explanation about why a lot of things happened the way they did. Especially the random gruesome murders of the Harkonnen people done by their elites. 

What really set me off was how many irrelevant famous people were cast. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love every chance I can to see Timothée Chalamet on my screen, but this is about all of the other actors and actresses that were cast in the movie as well. When I saw Anya Taylor-Joy on tour with the cast, I was excited. I loved her in “Queen’s Gambit” and “Peaky Blinders,” but to have her in the movie for practically a minute made me laugh. 

Don’t even get me started on Zendaya, she’s an amazing actress; however, I do not think she fits the badass role she was cast in. Her facial expressions when portraying sadness or pain felt repetitive, which goes for any project she’s been cast in, such as “Euphoria” or the MCU Spider-Man films. 

What I will say is I feel that this movie was solely based around Paul becoming the Lisan al Gaib and did not focus on spice production, space travel, and just spice in general. I can understand that Paul becoming the Lisan al Gaib was extremely important to the plot; however, when the Emperor came into play as the overseer of spice and who got to rule it, we hardly got any details! Let alone only seeing Christopher Walken for maybe five minutes and four lines. Everything just seemed rushed, yet the movie was almost three hours long.

The Good

To start with the good I have to bring up the wardrobe and set. It was incredible to see how different the costuming for this film was–exceedingly better than Part One. I say this because of just how unique each character’s ancient house is shown to be through their wardrobe, symbolizing what the houses stand for. The massive jump of Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) being conservative, well-mannered, and polite in her attire from her time being an Atreides, to her embracing her full Bene Gesserit self, and becoming the Reverend Mother of the Fremen with the symbols bestowed upon her through markings was just incredible.

Besides the impressive wardrobe choices, the cinematography was also just insane. I felt the power dynamic going between the gardens of the Padishah and Arrakis, it was as if my own mood swayed when the audience was shown the different scenes. This mood change included the terrifying scenes from the Giedi Prime, which showed the true evil that the Harkonnens harnessed. From the sun creating their world black and white, void of any color,  to everyone uniformed as one with the same intentions found throughout the Harkonnen people. 

I will conclude with how powerful this movie really was. Many have said the book to the movie translates well, more so than any other book-to-movie franchise, which is always wonderful to hear. This feedback leaves me intrigued to read the books and create my own parallels between them. 

Judgment

All in all, I think this franchise has a lot to fix before the creation of the third movie, “Dune Messiah.” That doesn’t mean they haven’t made incredible improvements since the first movie, especially in terms of costumes and cinematography. I will say that the only other thing I wanted to see from this movie was a more satisfying ending — it left me wanting more by the end. Nonetheless, it is far better than Part One, and my review should not shun anyone away from watching this captivating movie on screen.