Dune: Part Two: new villain, more worms, another cliffhanger – discuss with spoilers

Three years after Denis Villeneuve left us in the middle of the desert and the story, we’re finally back to the Duniverse. The French-Canadian auteur gambled with the first Dune, adapting only half of Frank Herbert’s 1965 sci-fi tome; Part Two picks up where the first film left off, with Timothée Chalamet’s high-born Paul Atreides stranded on the desert planet Arrakis, attempting to ingratiate himself to the indigenous Fremen with the fate of the universe on his shoulders – if you believe the prophecies.

Related: Dune v Dune: do Denis Villeneuve’s films stay true to the book?

Like the book, the second half of this grandiose, ambivalent epic deals with shadowy propaganda, the power of faith, the deadly risks of mythic destiny, political insurgencies, atomic weapons and imperial violence. Also, giant sandworms, finally in full battle form. The extremely hype-y trailers, coupled with near-universally glowing reviews, stellar audience scores and a good old-fashioned press blitz by not one but four young movie stars helped Dune: Part Two to a better-than expected box office – $81.5m domestically, $178m total, the biggest opening weekend since Barbie.

It’s hard to qualify for spoilers when the book is nearly 60 years old. But still, spoiler alert, as there was much intrigue to how Villeneuve would handle the second half of the book – how faithful would he be to the material? Do the sandworms live up to the hype? What to make of Austin Butler, or another cliffhanger ending? Now that you’ve seen what is shaping up to be, potentially, the movie-going event of the year, let’s discuss.

Arrival

Before we even get to the Warner Bros title card, we hear a guttural proclamation, translated over black: “Power over spice is power over all.” Blockbuster sci-fi clearly inspired by oil in the Middle East, we are so back! The imperial Princess Irulan, played by series newcomer Florence Pugh (who, as always, manages to appear right at home in whatever century/country/galaxy she’s in), provides a two-minute recap: House Atreides has been all but exterminated on Arrakis, killed in the dark – the secret work of her father, the Emperor, in concert with the overtly villainous Harkonnens.

And then we’re back to where the first film left off, or shortly thereafter – Paul and his mother Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) in the open desert, having just recently joined a band of Fremen warriors led by Stilgar (Javier Bardem). Villeneuve has compressed the timeline on Arrakis from eight or nine years to months, so things get going quickly; the group, still carrying the body of Jamis (Babs Olusanmokun), the warrior Paul killed at the end of Part One, immediately encounter a group of Harkonnens looking to either find Paul, exterminate the Fremen, or both.

Say what you will about Villeneuve’s characterization (or lack thereof) of any Harkonnen foot soldiers or especially the Fremen – the moment when the Harkonnens start flying to the top of a desert mountain is sick. The Fremen attack on a Harkonnen spice harvester is sick. Every battle in this movie is a true visual feast. And the visualization of Fremen harvesting water from Harkonnen bodies adds a touch of visceral body horror to all the big desert set pieces.

Womb with a view

I won’t get too in the weeds with differences from the book – my colleague Tom Huddleston broke it down here – but suffice to say, there are some changes for the sake of economy: no Thufir Hawat (played in the first film by Stephen McKinley Henderson), no Leto II (honestly, thank God), no Count Fenring (sorry, Tim Blake Nelson, who was reportedly hired to play him). One of the biggest changes is the portrayal of Alia, Paul’s younger sister, who remains in utero throughout the movie (save an adult cameo, played by Anya Taylor-Joy, in Paul’s worm venom-induced vision). But she still plays a crucial role as an embryo that Villeneuve puts on screen, to demonstrate how Jessica’s consumption of the Water of Life (worm venom) imbues were with “pre-born” powers, as well as explicate her motivations.

Ferguson’s performance is pitch perfectly creepy and intense, as Jessica inherits the memories of centuries of Fremen culture to, by her own admission to Alia, convert vulnerable people into believers of the Lisan al-Ghaib, a prophecy planted for centuries by the shadowy Bene Gesserit. Dune has always been astute on the informal, intangible yet mighty soft power historically wielded by women; Jessica’s transformation into the Reverend Mother, fanning the flames of faith and managing cultural memory for her own gain, is a particularly unsettling depiction of colonial violence. The fact that she does so while chatting with her telepathic fetus just adds to the weirdness.

Desert romance

Villeneuve has about an hour before he really needs to get off Arrakis and establish everything else going on, and in that time, we need to believe that Paul and Chani, the Fremen warrior played by Zendaya, fall in love. Luckily, Zendaya and Chalamet have a natural chemistry, and Villeneuve affords us a few scenes of flirting around Paul’s numerous desert tests – namely, Chani telling him that he “sandwalks like a drunk lizard” and teaching him to build wind traps.

Unlike Villeneuve’s friend Christopher Nolan, who included the first sex scene of his blockbuster career in last year’s Oppenheimer, Dune: Part Two keeps it relatively tame: we get a nice for-the-trailer kiss amid the great desert vistas, several declarations of devotion (“I would very much like to be equal to you,” Paul tells Chani, and that’s when you know this is going nowhere good) and a postcoital tent moment to discuss some classic mother-in-law issues (Chani tells him she’s stirring up trouble; Paul just sighs and looks exasperated).

From Elvis to Feyd-Rautha

One of the great question marks of Part Two was how Austin Butler, heretofore primarily known for playing Elvis in perpetuity, would embody Baron Harkonnen’s dastardly nephew and heir, na-Baron Feyd-Rautha. The answer is: brilliant, bald, brutal. Slicked in black paint and murderously unpredictable, filmed in monochrome with gleaming white skin and black teeth, Butler looks, frankly, insane. As Princess Irulan puts it maybe too bluntly: “Feyd-Rautha? But he’s psychotic!”

He’s also, crucially, ripped, and brimming with danger. Butler has finally shed his Elvis voice, and instead speaks in a chilling, raspier take on Stellan Skarsgård’s portentous rasp. As reported by the Bene Gesserit: Feyd-Rautha is a highly intelligent sociopath who murdered his mother, craves pain and humiliation, and is sexually vulnerable. And thus to many … hot. If Dune: Part Two is often dry, dutiful and sterile, Butler’s Feyd-Rautha offers a jolt of psychosexual edge. (No wonder his brief moment with Léa Seydoux’s Bene Gesserit seductress Lady Fenring, in which she mindfucks him into the hand-in-the-box test from the first film, has already been memed.)

Christopher Walken is in Dune?

Casting Christopher Walken as the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV was a left-field choice for many Dune fans — the 80-year-old actor isn’t exactly known for speaking in the way of blockbuster gravitas. Personally, this was one the film’s few bum notes for me. Walken looks the part of an ageing emperor saddled with secrets, but has a voice that feels as suited for 24,000 years from now as the name “Jessica”. Lines such as “This Muad’Dib, some new Fremen prophet,” hit different in an accent distinctive and famous enough to inspire its own BMW Super Bowl commercial. And yet when the moment calls for it – a wordless, tremulous Emperor literally stomped at by Paul to kiss the ring – Walken is up to the task.

Zendaya’s movie?

One of the main critiques of the first film, particularly from people who didn’t know what they were in for, was that it overly teased Zendaya – other than a few visions, she only appeared as Chani in the last half hour. Part Two is her moment, and still, there could’ve and should’ve been more Zendaya as Chani, as Villeneuve has significantly altered the books to make her the moral heart of the franchise. The Duniverse has always been skeptical of Paul’s destiny and power, of whether his Chosen One arc was fated or manufactured – either way, doesn’t matter, it causes mass destruction. In Villeneuve’s take, Chani is refreshingly skeptical of Paul’s intentions and the fundamentalist Fremen prophecies from the jump – “you want to control people? Tell them a messiah will come,” she says. “Then they’ll wait – for centuries.”

Chani is arguably tasked with carrying too much – she’s supposed to sell the romance with Paul, represent his true connection to the Fremen, embody the anti-colonialist themes of the book, poke fun at Stilgar’s fanaticism for comic relief and undercut the classic Chosen One prophecy narrative with some sense. The fact that Zendaya makes her still feel like a person – one whose heart gets broken as Paul takes over the Imperium, leads the Fremen to more war and proposes to Princess Irulan — is an accomplishment.

The Final Showdown

I don’t have much to say about the final showdown in Arrakeen other than watching legions of warriors ride in on sandworms made me grin like a child. We are blessed to live in the age of big-canvas auteurs and CGI.

Sad boy rules

By the end of the movie, Chalamet’s makeup has changed to reflect the mood — Paul’s face has the pallor of burden (or betrayal?), and Chalamet’s performance is ice-cold (“you die like an animal” is the last thing the Baron hears). It’s a strikingly ambivalent ending to Paul’s arc: he got what he wanted (revenge) and then some, but nothing about it feels triumphant. He’s battered, twice stabbed and dead in the eyes, having betrayed all of his promises to Chani.

Given its subtext, one inescapable reading of Dune for me was as a great parable for mega-fame – what it means to be chosen, willingly or through great effort; what you lose to being known and cherished by millions, to having whole economies and livelihoods depend on an idea of you. Dune might be one of the few films left to refute the “death” of the movie star, but it looks taxing.

Baiting Warner Bros again?

Villeneuve already made a huge gamble in adapting just half of Dune with the first film, despite not having a sequel greenlit – and he appears to be betting on himself again. The final shot of the film belongs not to Paul but to Chani, emotionally calling a sandworm to go her own way, a departure from the books. Villeneuve has been remarkably open about wanting to make a third installment based on Dune: Messiah that will, presumably, follow Chani’s lead. Given Part Two’s performance this weekend, I’m betting on more Dune.