Dune: Part Two (2024) by Denis Villeneuve – 4.8/5
Warning: Spoiler Alert.
“Dreams are messages from the deep.”
64 years since Frank Herbert’s sci-fi epic novel, 39 years since David Lynch’s questionably eccentric but brave film adaptation, three years since Denis Villeneuve’s revolutionary Dune: Part One, and three months since the original Part Two release: finally, we return to the Duniverse.
Dune: Part Two is a spectacle from a dimension more grandiose than ours. Filmed on IMAX cameras and best viewed in the format, the monumental film highlights Villeneuve’s prowess and Greig Fraser’s cinematography at their very best. Part Two picks up where Part One ends. Following House Harkonnen’s brutal invasion and destruction of the Atreides leadership on the desert planet Arrakis, Paul Atreides unites with the Fremen people to wage war and fight back. However, Paul must prove himself to the Fremen people before he can gain their desert power to interfere with spice production on a galactic scale. It is this interference that leads to the Emperor himself (played by Christopher Walken) bringing his Sardaukar army to the battlefield of Arrakis.
Visually pulsating and breathtaking, each scene is choreographed with profound beauty, as the desert colours absorb Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides and Rebecca Ferguson’s Lady Jessica and a darkness surrounds Austin Butler’s horrifyingly villainous Feyd-Rautha and the other Harkonnens. Most fascinating is the refreshing light that surrounds the Emperor (Christopher Walken) and Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh), a questionable symbolisation for an Emperor whose political ambitions and greed for power caused the war on Arrakis. Yet, it was Frank Herbert’s book that allowed the reader to question where the truth lies and who is right or wrong. Is Paul a man fighting for the people in a guerrilla resistance style, or a chosen boy fuelled by revenge, willing to go to any lengths to see his enemies eradicated from the universe? Does anyone truly know what is right and what is wrong?
The extraordinary visuals of Dune are heightened by the punching intensity of the soundscapes. Fuelled from out-of-this-world inventions, including new instruments created to make alien-esque sounds, Hans Zimmer’s compositions and Theo Green and Mark Mangini’s sound design match their visual counterparts in equal measure. Even the beating sound of the thumper feels forceful.
However, it is through the timely themes that resonate deeply with our world today that we find the true importance of Dune — beyond the power of its sight and sound. It is a story of truths and ideals, exploring class and race struggles, politics, the weaponisation of fear, and devastating religious wars that point to a terrifying future where power lies within the hands of few. Before the film even begins, we hear a chilling phrase in Sardaukar, the language of a tyrant-controlled private militia: “Power over spice is power over all.” From this moment until long after the screen goes black, it is impossible not to contemplate how this applies to our own society.