I’ve forgotten what happened in Dune: Part One. I’m not alone right? In fact I had to read my previous review to remind me, but with my no spoiler policy, I’m still a bit in the dark. I liked it though it seems and left looking forward to Part Two and so here we are. We start in the ashes of war, but the fight is not over. Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) is lying in the sand dunes once more, fighting with those trying to destroy him, his family, both those fighting alongside and those yet to be born. I’d forgotten just how dense this is and it’s really quite difficult to pick up. Watch Part 1 and 2 back to back if you can, there’s no refreshers. The bad guys are The Harkonnen. Pasty bald fellas lead by Rabban (Dave Bautista). They now control the Spice fields. The stuff that sustains life on these alien planets and allows travel between them, although this all centres on one planet, Arrakis. Paul and Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) are in exile of sorts there, helped by Stilgar (Javier Bardem), they’re on his turf, but the locals aren’t happy about it, mainly because they hold him responsible for the death of one of their own, a detail I’ve clearly forgotten since the last film. There’s a lot of chanting, contemplation, spirituality. It’s packed with symbology and ritual. This will help the pair, while many don’t like their presence, enough see them as a sign of hope. I’d forgotten too who Jessica is, the important detail is she’s pregnant with Paul’s baby sister. Making her his Mother, but honestly it takes me a while to clock this. She becomes embroiled in their new home’s social and religious fabric, whilst Paul builds his myth as Stilgar’s messiah. Chani (Zendaya) is having none of the mythical stuff, but she’s happy to help him learn how to survive the desert. The visual juxtaposotion of the ancient desert and the sci-fi tech is arresting stuff. Add a layer of bwoarrrr sound design and it hits the blockbuster epic quota easily. It’s not that a scene with gunfire and explosions is essential here, but it finally triggers a point, nearly an hour in where I finally feel onboard with this. Paul is shown to be what he is, a fighter, a politician, a leader. No longer living in the shadows of his past. He can move forward and so too can this film. For all the tender spiritual side, let’s not forget what’s central to all this. Spice. The commodity. The control of it. As Paul progresses with his new friends. Rabban is displeasing his boss the Baron (Stellan Skarsgård) by letting things slip. It could do with a little more of this darkness as it builds. It’s very slow paced. I’ve no issue with being patient but this does test it. As good as Chalamet is, this film puts more than it needs to on his shoulders. The first film seemed to balance all the political plot well with the action, tension and CGI eye candy. This though gets bogged down like Star Wars did with fluffy dialogue delivered by characters with hard to remember names. Honestly, I’m just not invested enough to care, even when the Emperor (Christopher Walken) and his impressive family of Charlotte Rampling and Florence Pugh turn up, like inconsequential gods in a far removed subplot. The introduction of a new bad boy, Feyd-Raytheon (Austin Butler), who looks like a bald Erling Haaland, is one of the most stylishly cinematic things I’ve seen in a long time. It’s pure style over substance and unoriginal in its gladiatorial aping, but it’s still absolutely stunning. In short (a bit late for that), you’ve got the bad dudes inter-fighting, power grabbing, eventually getting themselves sorted in order to go up against the godlike purity of Paul and his mates, once they sort out their own religious clap-trap. Evil against the righteous. This sounds reductive, but that really is it. Feyd-Rautha adds a whole new story at the half way mark. It’s almost like they got bored with Part Two and decided to start Part Three instead. It is all connected, but at three bloody hours, it’s like a gruelling endurance test. Can anything save it? How about Josh Brolin with a sitar? He’s Gurney Halleck, essentially the yahoo American composite. He carries it well, in fact all the acting is solid and you could take any single frame of your choosing and stick it on your wall as art. But there’s no denying it’s convoluted. You’ll know this from Part One and if you’ve watched that, you’ll watch this and you’ll likely enjoy it. When it finally gets to its final act, it really is gripping. Do we need a Part Three? No not really, not in the same way we needed this. But it’s coming all the same. I might need to watch Parts 1 and 2 again before watching it though, that’s going to be a long 6 hours!
6/10
Comments