Movie Review: Dune: Part Two (2024)

Dune: Part Two (2024) co-written and directed by Denis Villeneuve based on the novel by Frank Herbert

See my review of Part One here. 

The story picks up with Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) and his mom (Rebecca Ferguson) integrating themselves into the Fremen society on Arrakis. She wants him accepted as their new messiah who will kick out the off-worlders; he just wants revenge on the Harkonnens for the death of his father and the rest of the family. One way for him to get revenge is to help the Fremen fight the Harkonnens, so he is partially fulfilling his mother's ambition. He has nightmares that uncountable numbers of people will die if he goes down the path to messiah-hood, so he wants to avoid that. The Fremen/Harkonnen conflict boils over into much larger issues and much larger, longer-term plans by various factions in the galactic empire, including plans by the Emperor (Christopher Walken) himself.

The movie continues on in the tone and style of the first part. The epic sweep is grows as more of the story happens off of Arrakis, other planets including the emperor's home world and the Harkonnen planet are featured. Actions scenes become expansive with both large-scale battles taking down spice harvesters and smaller-scale (though more important plot-wise) hand-to-hand combats. The characters grapple with a lot of political issues and being in the hands of fate. Paul is especially worried about his supposed destiny as Dune's messiah and struggles to fit in with the Fremen, especially his girlfriend Chani (Zendaya). The actors do a great job and aren't overwhelmed by the epic scope of the storytelling. The movie is very entertaining, beautiful to look at, and tells an interesting story.

Highly recommended--I liked it just as much as the first film.