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.

Movie Review: Dune: Part One (2021)

Dune: Part One (2021) co-written and directed by Denis Villenueve from the novel by Frank Herbert

In a far distant future, interstellar travel is powered by Spice, a product only found on the desert planet Arrakis. The Emperor (an unseen character) has transferred authority over the planet from House Harkonnen to House Atreides. The Harkonnens have been brutal harvesters, but Arrakis is a brutal planet with extremely difficult natives (the Fremen), creatures (giant sand worms), and storms (the sand blasting will peel a lot more than the paint off your spaceship). The Harkonnens are also crafty and will not go down without putting up some resistance. Political intrigue is only part of the drama. Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) has been preparing for leadership while he has been having strange, prophetic dreams about events on Arrakis. He trains in physical combat and in psychic abilities, since his mother is part of the Bene Gesserit, a group of mystics with powers to see the future and influence the wills of others. When he gets to Arrakis, he faces opposition from the Harkonnens and the Fremen, though he thinks that he has been drawn to the planet as a savior or messiah figure for the Fremen. 

While the overall plot is a science fiction political space opera with a hero's journey for Paul Atreides, the movie manages to be so much more (even though that's already a lot to begin with). The big actions sequences and amazing visuals set up the world of the characters. But the characters are not dwarfed by their epic surroundings. They have a lot more existential, interior, and personal battles as they face their exterior opponents. The movie manages to provide the intimacy of an art house film while also delivering a large-scale future-society drama. The only flaw in the film is its expectation for viewers to keep up with what's going on. If viewers haven't read the book or seen previous versions of the story (the 1984 movie or the TV miniseries) or consulted the internet on what to know before watching, the movie may be hard to follow. A lot of the details (like the combat suits that only let a slow-moving weapon strike, not fast cuts or shots) and political factions are barely explained. Viewers get a sense of the larger milieu that would take an extra hour to show. Brevity is the good when there is so much. The other problem is the cliffhanger ending, which stops at a nice dramatic moment but leaves the viewer waiting for the next movie to find out if Paul will fulfill his fate (if it really is his fate).

I was a little skeptical going into the film because I've had mixed feelings about Villenueve's previous films. The twist at the end of Arrival I found moving but also a little annoying and Bladerunner 2049 followed a little too closely the ambiguity and the inscrutability of the original film. Dune, however, I enjoyed without any complaints and am looking forward to the second film. My only regret is not having seen it in the theater. Maybe when Part Two comes out the cinemas might have some sort of marathon viewing option.

Highly recommended--a great commingling of art house sensibilities with space opera epicness. 

Movie Review: Arrival (2016)

Arrival (2016) directed by Denis Villeneuve

Aliens have come in twelve separate ships that are randomly scattered across the planet. Each country has teams of scientists trying to figure out the aliens. Linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is recruited by the U.S. military to help them communicate with the extra-terrestrials. Dr. Banks is chosen since she's already got a Top Secret clearance and has helped the government translate time-sensitive materials. The aliens use a language that is completely foreign so she has a huge task ahead of her. Relations with the other nations are strained as they try to determine if the visitors are a threat or peaceful. Louise is also plagued by memories of her daughter who dies of an unnamed disease.

The movie is this year's big ambitious thinky/feely science fiction film (cf. Gravity, Interstellar, The Martian). Language and memory are the main subjects of this film. The discussions about language and the various attempts to communicate with the aliens are interesting and creative. The military pressuring scientists to get results is typical of the genre. That part of the movie is mostly predictable and uninteresting, even with a fine actor like Forest Whitaker as the main military man dealing with the scientists. The nature of memory is set out as the main theme at the beginning but by the end the filmmakers have made a mess of it.

Weirdly enough, that mess is what makes Louise's narrative make sense. She comes to grips in a new and startling way with her daughter's fate after she understands the aliens' intent in coming. As a larger narrative, the story doesn't make sense but as it specifically relates to Louise and her life, it pulls things together at the end.

I have fairly mixed feelings about the movie. The score is a bit ham-fisted in melodramatizing events in the story. The movie looks very similar to other films going all the way back to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, so it isn't particularly original (except for the alien writing). The ideas are interesting and fun to chew on, even if they are ultimately hard to swallow. Amy Adams gives a great performance in the lead role, holding together the shaky narrative.