Dune: Part 2

 The Dune books were always just as much about the grand designs and conspiracies of the powerful as they were about the pulpy adventures of its heroes; In fact, those plucky protagonists start out as victims of these machinations, and their journey is to turn into Machiavellian machinators in their own right. It's a complex, thorny saga that doesn't really have a lot of faith in humanity.

 That's something that seems to have resonated with director/co-writer Dennis Villeneuve. Despite having all the trappings of an (artsy) action/adventure sci-fi movie, this is a bleak, fatalistic fantasy.

 After the events of Part 1, Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and his mother Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) have narrowly escaped the destruction of their house at the hands of the gleefully psychotic Harkonnen. They are taken in by Stilgar (Javier Bardem), a chieftain of one of the desert tribes of Arrakis, the Fremen.
 Paul humbly joins the tribe, asking only to learn their ways, while Jessica is recognized as a "witch", part of the order of the Benne Gesserit, and inducted as reverend mother of the local order.

 Paul takes on a Fremen name (Muad'dib) and gets to go on adventures harassing Harkonnen spice operations and romancing Chani (Zendaya), a Fremen warrior only seen in visions in the first movie but with a fairly juicy role this time around; Their courtship is pretty sweet - it includes her teaching him sandwalking, which looks like they're doing a synchronized re-enactment of Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks skit. She (and her friend) also seem like the only one who's having fun in the movie. Well, she and her friend and Stilgar, who gets a lot of wryly funny lines.

FUCK YEAH.

 While Paul is having fun playing soldier in the sand, Jessica goes to the planet's "uninhabitable" southern hemisphere, where all the religious fundamentalists hang out, to lay out the groundwork for a holy war. Yes, the movie goes out further into fantasy land than the book; But it gives the Fremen some welcome complexity; the northeners look down on their fundie cousins, making fun of them for believing in prophecies.

 The Harkonnen eventually get tired of this new rabble rouser throwing sand (sorry) into their spice-harvesting machinery, and in an absolutely stunning near-monochromatic interlude set in the Harkonnen home planet, they arrange for another scion of the house to go down to Dune to impose some order: Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler), famously played by Sting in the 1984 edition. His brutal oppression will lead Paul to make some harsh choices.

 It wouldn't be Dune without an extra dozen characters to introduce, so the story expands to include the emperor (Christopher Walken) and his heir (Florence Pugh) and their reaction to this hiccup in spice production.

 The script (by Villeneuve and Jon Spaiths - Eric Roth seems to have fallen by the wayside) has a lot of ground to cover, and moves at a fair clip; That, coupled with its complexity meant that I was always engaged and never felt it drag. And yes, now there's a payoff, it retroactively 'fixes' the pacing and structural problems of the first movie.

 And holy shitballs have they ever stepped up on the visual department. Part One is no slouch on that front, but this film has multiple scenes that had me smiling like an idiot. Villeneuve still hasn't completely cracked how to make exciting action (the swordfights are better this time around, better choreographed), but the level of spectacle on display, and the trippy, imaginative visuals are second to none. None. The scale of some of those things!

 Hans Zimmer's score is still excellent, and this time around it didn't hurt my ears - I'll reserve my opinion on the sound mix until I can watch it on home video at a lower volume, but I suspect it's all right now.

 It also remains fairly faithful to the source material, though less so than the first part. Paul's sister remains unborn here, which was a little disappointing as it was always one of the novel's wackier elements; I'd have loved to see it rendered in these movies' overtly serious style. Instead we get Jessica wandering around whispering like a madwoman to her womb, which is a pretty good consolation prize. A little Prevenge in the year's biggest blockbuster so far.

 Oh, and Chani is no longer the non-entity she was in the books, eventually becoming somewhat of a conscientious objector here, and it adds to the attempts to make the Fremen be a little complex here, and to Paul's journey. I liked that change.

A few other things were changed (that I noticed), but all in all it seems to me that the spirit of the novel remains unchanged.

 Does it have issues? Well, yes, because nothing is perfect except maybe Braindead. Or, closer to home, Arrival.

 I don't mind that it's not really science fiction - that battle was lost sixty years ago, for fuck's sake, move on - but I have a *lot* of conceptual issues with the technologies and tactics on display. The personal shields remain as protective as being wrapped in wet napkins, and surveillance seems to be non-existent (thousands upon thousands sneak up on a capital city without anyone noticing - I know they're desert power or whatever, but come the fuck on).
 There's a whole engagement where ground forces attack a spice harvester that's easily resolved by a laser (which remain hugely overpowered in these movies) slicing the whole thing in half in seconds. Why bother sending ground troops in the first place? And so on; it's all forgivable, but I wouldn't begrudge someone for taking offense at these things - lesser problems have sunk whole movies for me, after all.

 Those are minor niggles. My greatest issue is that, despite giving in and falling into the cadence of an action movie, Villeneuve seemingly remains uninterested in providing an action movie; Many of the beats in the final stretch - especially the final battles - feel oddly curtailed, perfunctory, even when they're providing the sort of cathartic resolution you'd expect. At least they nailed the fight with Feyd, that was pretty good.
 Yes, I know making the action exciting might dilute the message, but come on - might as well go the whole mile to get to your cake and eat it. Or something. Maybe the movie was too long already, but then there were definitely other aspects of the film that could have been tightened to let the action breathe a little more; Leave the finer details for the extended editions. Oh well.

 It feels really petty to complain about such a wealth of awesome stuff, though; It's staggeringly good, and on a pure spectacle level, it puts pretty much anything else to shame. Bring on Messiah of Dune, I can't wait to watch Timothée staggering around the desert in a drugged-out haze for two hours. As long as it looks half this good, I won't complain.