It takes chutzpah to reboot your sci-fi epic years in the womb in development, but after a quick prologue, that's basically where “Dune: Part Two” begins. We are told that the floating fetus does not communicate with its mother and brother in the typical way. ooh, baby is kicking fashionable, but rather in full-blown telepathic phrases about interplanetary strategy and guerrilla warfare. She is the unborn Alia, and her brother, Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), also has words for her: “Sister, my father is dead,” he says, sounding less like a rising hero than a gloomy teenager in need of a helping hand. . hug.
There's an eerie grandeur to these scenes with the galactic-brained baby, one that's in keeping with the overall spirit of Frank Herbert's groundbreaking 1965 novel, which itself was in conversation with a future generation. For all its Campbellian myth-making, the book spoke to a nascent audience of young people who wanted drugs (okay, call them “spice”), expanded consciousness, and ecological awareness. Over the years, “Dune” has attracted the most daring filmmakers to crash their dream ships on its rugged shores, visionaries like David Lynch and Alejandro Jodorowsky.
I would never have put the spectacular-minded French-Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve in his company, and I still won't. But he understands something about “Dune” that those cult creators never understood, an idea that makes the second half of his colossal and frequently astonishing adaptation an instant milestone of its genre. (The sensitive, unborn Alia is Villeneuve's own invention, a departure from Herbert's text.) He opens our eyes with great action, the product of an army of visual effects experts, but then he asks us, as he did with 2016's “Arrival,” to interpret and connect the dots. More an act of literary fidelity than of generosity, its sequel immerses us in the book's messianic prophecies, but also in spiritual uncertainty, cultural conflict and doubt, as it should be. In some ways, Villeneuve has created a “Dune” for now and tomorrow.
If the chair-shaking first film prioritized Imax-sized mood over incident (no small feat during our pandemic-challenged 2021), it still set the billiard balls in motion and we're back to them in the middle of recess. Rebecca Ferguson's pregnant Lady Jessica and Chalamet's Paul are strangers in a strange land: the sole survivors of House Atreides, their family and their army recently killed in a sneak attack on Arrakis, the arid, unforgiving desert world where minerals are mined. precious spices. It's scary enough being chased by faceless, armored soldiers who can float down the sides of canyons, but Jessica and Paul also find themselves barely tolerated by the local Fremen, a blue-eyed people who see them as interchangeable with anyone else. invader.
Their presence is also complicated by an ancient and controversial legend, a story that anticipates the arrival of a revolutionary fighter, the Voice of the Outside World. Almost immediately, the undercurrents of colonialism and imposed mysticism elevate Villeneuve's central performances in a way that the first film could only suggest. Chalamet's delicate features take on a tormented sharpness as Paul hopes to earn what his mother, the Bene Gesserit priestess Jessica, would prefer to manipulate into converting nonbelievers. (Ferguson, his face tattooed for much of the film, leans into dazzling menace.)
Two finely complex supporting turns add depth to the mother-son survival story: Chani, Zendaya's suspicious Fremen soldier, who falls for Paul despite her better judgment; and a roaring and religiously transported Javier Bardem, who, with paternal warmth, does everything possible to fulfill the prophecy. There are gigantic sandworms to ride and surf like waves, vials of blue goo to drink to clarify properties, but “Dune: Part Two” is firmly fixed on the idea of authenticity. At every turn, the script (by Villeneuve and co-writer Jon Spaihts) injects a countervailing critique of Herbert's Arab-inspired setting. Is Paul, her “desert mouse,” a hidden suitor?
Meanwhile, Paul learns to take down spice gatherers and conduct raids, his pale skin covered by glasses and dark shawls. How are we going to receive this gigantic epic of occupation and racial cooptation? It's a hand grenade question that will no doubt be lobbed in “Dune: Part Two,” as it is, at times, in 1962's dizzying “Lawrence of Arabia,” a saga that influenced Herbert. The answer will vary from viewer to viewer, but to these eyes Villeneuve enters what could have been toxic with a conscious sense of fatalism. Scene by scene, Chalamet stirs his character's rise with notes of rage, guilt, unhappiness and syndrome. of the impostor. . Composer Hans Zimmer's drone-laden score never reaches a tone of triumphalism; Much of this film's delicate poise is his.
Then, in the blink of an eye, the film executes a surprising transformation, cutting to the spoiled milk palette of Giedi Prime, an overindustrialized hell lit by a “black sun” where a young future baron presents a cosmic challenge to the Paul's cosmic birthright. . (Boldly, cinematographer Greig Fraser shoehorns in an entire second film shot in silver monochrome.) Austin Butler's engagement to “Elvis” was the stuff of legend, but his creepy Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen may be just as impressive: a pale monster and hairless prone to roars and dark appetites. These scenes – futuristic fascist demonstrations and gladiator stabbings – elevate all of “Dune” into a realm of sinister risks. You lean towards the confrontation that is inevitable.
There are still elements of Herbert's saga that no filmmaker, not even one as thoughtful as Villeneuve, can resolve. She Has Too Many Royal Princesses: Here she is played by Florence Pugh in a role that is almost as thankless as the one Lynch gave to Virginia Madsen. She cannot be the final prize of such an important battle. And the idea of a holy war revolving around the last-minute rediscovery of “family atomic” seems a little stuck in the 1960s, even if it's masterminded by a scruffy presence as likable as Josh Brolin.
But has the final stretch of a movie ever leaned so much on an actor's quivering chin? Zendaya struggles with the ramifications of the Paul of him becoming fierce, vengeful and oh-so-political. Chalamet stomps and the camera shakes.
“Dune: Part Two” is not a battle for freedom won, but rather the beginning of something much more cynical, the potential for an entire universe to explode in flames. Villeneuve has hit one of Hollywood's big bets of recent times, delivering a two-part epic full of literary nuance, timely meaning and perhaps even the promise of one or two more films. Like that baby who speaks in the womb, he speaks of what is to come more than we can imagine.
