Chosen One narratives are a dime a dozen -and they are a particular cliché in the science-fiction and fantasy genres. Occasionally compelling, they are more often than not tedious: a protagonist ordained as special by no actions of their own who goes on to fulfil exactly what they are destined to. It is a weak device of character development that requires real strength and ingenuity of context around to make it excusable, rarer to make it work. In Dune, Paul Atreides is a Chosen One, but in such a fascinating unconventional sense that it more or less embarrasses the entire archetype. Because it is a role he doesn’t really want to fulfil, because doing so means causing considerably more harm than good. And yet it is a role he is both forced into and allured by in spite of his reservations.
Dune: Part Two is the second half of Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s genre staple novel, and it is certainly a more holistically complete story than its predecessor, which for all of its various attributes and gravity of effect, ended in an awkward place on a fairly anticlimactic note. Part Two not only gets to resolve that story (or at least temporarily resolve it), but it is not so bound to exposition, and has more room to wrestle with the interesting political and religious themes that are a vital part of this series’ character. And driven by these things, the film is a spectacle of grandiose proportion.
The plot picks up with the new status quo on the planet Arrakis: House Harkonnen in control of the spice harvesting in the aftermath of their massacre of the Atreides. Paul (Timothée Chalamet) survives in the desert with his mother Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) among the native Fremen, who gradually are coming to see him as the fulfilment of a prophecy about their Messiah -which Paul warily considers as he aids in the attempts to disrupt operations for the Harkonnens and mount a revolt against the larger empire.
Back in 2021, I felt it was perhaps a bit premature to compare Dune as an adaptation to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. As great as it was and as big as it felt, it didn’t really convey that same sense of importance, that sense of heavy emotional power or ubiquity for a Hollywood blockbuster. Dune: Part Two (awkward title notwithstanding) at last gives apt credence to that assertion. Villeneuve had the scale set by that first movie, here he puts it to greater use -expanding the world, not just on Arrakis, and showcasing with increased stamina its breathtaking effects. The visuals remain a thing of wonder, both in how gloriously shot the natural environments are and in the very sophisticated special effects that lend character to this universe -the various ships, the cities, the sandworms of course. This movie goes to the Harkonnen homeworld, shot entirely in infrared to give it an eerie black-and-white empty aesthetic. And the story is big enough to fit these impressive feats of technical craft, especially as Villeneuve hints at the grand machinations and the consequences, to say nothing of the emotions, behind his characters’ actions.
The most compelling facet of the film is its religious themes and greater dissection of the concept of prophecy. As hinted before, from far enough back Dune looks like a conventional hero’s story, a white saviour story -but there is much more that it is grappling with. The Fremen believe that Paul is their prophesied outer-world saviour, and he fits many of the tropes. They make Jessica their Reverend Mother, and even as Paul endeavours to refute some of the power and exultation they bestow on him, it doesn’t have an effect. There is a funny scene where Fremen leader Stilgar (Javier Bardem) notes in response to one of these exchanges that only the real Messiah would be so humble. And yet as the story goes on, the closer Paul gets to defeating the Harkonnens and avenging his father, the more convenient being the Fremen Messiah, the Lisan al Gaib, becomes for him.
It is a very provocative situation the movie sets up in this, and one that Villeneuve takes ample steps to ensure the audience understands the point. As Paul wrestles with assuming this role, at the potential cost of billions of lives across the galaxy, and as the conviction of the Fremen towards him turns into dangerous blind faith, the single voice of reason is Chani (Zendaya). As Paul's love interest, she has her own devotion to him, but Villeneuve and Zendaya are careful to emphasize its distinctness from that of his followers. Her love is for Paul the man rather than Maud'Dib the symbol, and it is a well-articulated relationship in the chemistry shared by Zendaya and Chalamet. For that matter any reservations I had about Chalamet's performance in the first movie are gone this time around -he fits the part completely, foreboding charisma and everything.
And this is of course vital to the film epitomizing that central theme Herbert was so intent on communicating: the myth of the hero and his inherent corruption. Paul has a righteous cause, his enemies are vile and sadistic or at the very least consumed by maintaining their grasp of power. Yet it is so easy for Paul to crave that too, a man who has visions of just how dangerous a figure he will be though still follows the path towards it. Once again Villeneuve recognizes the links between this story and that other one of a charismatic white saviour in the desert, Lawrence of Arabia -down to the fundamental critique of what power and adulation reveals in a person. Through both Fremen dogma and the fundamentalist machinations of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood, he also makes clear those parallels with religion as we understand it. The former a symbol of how blind faith and more specifically indigenous religious traditions can be and are manipulated by outsiders, the latter a representation of the corrosion of organized religiosity and the fallibility of predestination as a driving philosophy.
Imbuing these themes and this world with great credibility is a stupendous cast, several of them back from the first film, joined by an inspired collection of newcomers. Among the stand-outs are Stellan Skarsgård, still exceptional as the monstrous Baron Harkonnen, Dave Bautista as his overconfident insecure nephew Rabban, Charlotte Rampling as the cold Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother Gaius Mohiam, and Bardem as the zealous Stilgar. Josh Brolin is also back as Paul’s mentor Gurney, though he isn’t particularly substantial. The same is true of Florence Pugh as the Imperial Princess Irulan, beyond the wisdom she demonstrates over her father Shaddam, played by Christopher Walken. Léa Seydoux makes the most out of her limited screen-time as a Bene Gesserit schemer on the Harkonnen homeworld. But the wildest and most interesting performance is certainly that of Austin Butler as the unsettling and brutal Feyd-Rautha, the young Harkonnen being trained to defeat Paul. Once again though, the critical blind spot concerns how few people of Middle-Eastern descent are cast in this story with a context drawn explicitly from Arab history and Muslim iconography. It is a classic example of appropriation and Hollywood aestheticizing a culture -even for a story so openly about the ills of colonialism.
It encompasses everything from the clothing and runes of the Fremen to the score by Hans Zimmer, which is quite good but also full of the usual collection of Arabic-sounding motifs. It is a natural impulse against the atmosphere conjured up by Villeneuve and his D.P. Greig Fraser, who accentuates all these references through comparable visual signifiers and mythic proportionality. Indeed, part of what makes the movie feel so big is how well the artists on this movie blend the real with the artificial -sequences like the sandworm rides or the destruction of a major spice harvester are constructed out of so many in-camera effects. The design favours minimalism virtually anywhere but the habitations of the Fremen -fascist architectural allusions that cannot be coincidental. A lot of thought clearly went into every detail here -both in terms of technical accomplishment and its meaningful use- to a level Hollywood is only beginning to see the value in again. The fight choreography is quite good and rough too, especially the one-on-one in the climax that sets up a sequel effectively.
Dune: Part Two does end the narrative expressed in Herbert’s original novel, but Villeneuve ensures the threads and questions are in place for his much-desired Dune: Messiah adaptation that would complete this Paul Atreides trilogy. And it’s clear by the character development and the ideas raised here, he is prepared to deepen this story’s complexity and its anti-heroic themes. This movie does a very strong job establishing these as well as the compelling universe they are set against. Dune: Part Two is thrilling and entertaining, provocative and tragic -a sequel that lives up to a lot, while setting up just as much to be lived up to.
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