Does ‘Dune: Part Two’ Live Up to the Hype?

Um. Yeah. Pretty much.

Much is being said about Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two, the latter half of his epic adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune, which began in 2021. The performances! The scale! The popcorn bucket! Like sand in the Arrakis desert, excitement around the Dune saga is everywhere … and rightfully so!

But I’ll come right out and say it: I was never a Dune fan. The original, MASSIVE book felt impenetrable to me and there wasn’t a lot drawing me to the David Lynch Dune earlier in life, what with its cat milking and battle pugs. Of course, as the first film neared release, I scooped up a copy of the book in the summer of 2021 to ride the hype train like a Fremen atop a sandworm.  I made it about 40 pages in. I was lost. It sat on my nightstand for two years.

I have since seen Dune: Part 1 at least three times, and I enjoy it overall! Villeneuve transformed a tome that was for half a century considered to be unfilmable into a beautiful and raw piece of cinema. Sure, it’s a tad slow and heavy on the worldbuilding. And sure, the movie ends just when the story starts to get really good. But that first installment proved to general audiences – and perhaps most importantly, to Warner Bros. Discovery – that Dune was a blockbuster franchise. Now, nearly three years later, we’ve got our conclusion. Or, at least, the middle chapter of a Dune trilogy given how it ends.

Picking up right where the first film left off, we catch up with Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), embedded with Arrakis’ native Fremen, a group that includes the faithful Stilgar (Javier Bardem) and the skeptical Chani (Zendaya). After the Atreides family was decimated by the nefarious Harkonnens in the first film, Paul seeks seek to strike back against the cruel and revolting Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård), whose nephews Glossu Rabban (Dave Bautista) and Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler) are hardly lacking in cruelty of their own. Meanwhile, the calculating Emperor Shaddam IV (Christopher Walken) and his daughter, Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh), look on with great interest as the conflict over Arrakis’ spice – one of the most powerful substances in the universe – continues to escalate. Perhaps that’s all thanks to their own machinations. But you didn’t hear that from them.

Of course, there is much knife fighting, worm riding, and Ornithoptering throughout the film’s 2 hours and 46-minute running time, but what truly propels this film is the performances. From Chalamet’s simmering malevolence to Butler’s unhinged menace to Skarsgård’s literal and figurative sliminess, everyone is at the top of their game. Zendaya in particular elevates Chani as the story takes her character on a journey that’s slightly different from the Chani of the book, and I can’t wait to see where she goes next.

And speaking of where Dune goes next, this is where media literacy comes in or, perhaps, our collective lack of it. It’s startling to see how many people on social media have completely misinterpreted Paul’s messianic ascent, viewing him as a heroic conqueror by the end of the film despite Villeneuve’s dedication to Herbert’s original intent. If they don’t get why the end of this movie means very bad things for the universe, they’ll understand completely when Villeneuve’s Dune: Messiah rolls around … I hope.

Dune: Part Two is already being considered one of the greatest genre sequels of all time – up there with The Dark Knight, Aliens and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. I’m not sure I agree just yet, but I will say that Dune: Part Two is one of the best films I’ve seen lately, and it deserves to be seen on the biggest screen possible. As for the popcorn buckets, hey, I won’t judge.  Don’t be afraid to buy one. As they say, “Fear is the mind-killer.”