There is no doubt in my mind that on a proficiency and craft level I may not see a better film this year than the second part of what we can now presume is Denis Villeneuve’s trilogy of films adapting from Frank Herbert’s Dune series. In regards to the quality of direction and in particular I found this time around in regards to the absolute scope and pace for the film’s full run-time, rather than the first part which I did feel for all it’s wonder and excellence did feel uneven, Villeneuve has bettered in almost every way what was already stellar in the first film. I came away from Dune: Part Two somewhat astounded, but I can’t lie and say that it hasn’t had as much of a lingering joy as so many of Villeneuve’s prior films have time and time again.
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Dune is heavy material in so many ways and has been understandably labelled for so long as unfilmable, however I have always felt that with a few adjustments everything could have been in place with previous adaptations; for instance if Lynch didn’t force the whole story in to 2hrs or so, then his world I think had an awful lot of quality, or for that matter if the special effects budget was better for the TV adaptations then something could have been made better there. What we do get however with Villeneuve’s theatrical two part adaptation is of course a version with a tremendous budget and just the right amount of time across the two films to tell this story with perfection. Now as Part Two grows in lore and begins the narrative arc that it is so clearly going to follow, we begin to realise that Part One was more table setting that perhaps at first some of us not versed in the Dune world would realise. We lose in the screenplay team the voice of Eric Roth for this film, but continue with Villeneuve double-dutying and Jon Spaihts. And to be frank from the bat as a piece of adaptation this is sublime work, although one can feel a slight rush near the end as we come to our conclusion it is masked by brilliant directing to make for a thrilling ticking time feeling. There is no pulling back from world building or the vast lore of Herbert’s world and overall it is this leaning into the bizarreness and the darkness of the original novel that makes Part Two for me the superior film. On a simplistic note this film could serve as its own tale, although it goes without saying that watching the first Part helps a lot (and is fundamental to be honest), but the point still stands that this Part could stand alone where Part One has always felt for me like an uneven tease with an astounding first 90 minutes and a back half hour that feels entirely like table setting. Working once again with Greg Fraiser as cinematographer, Villeneuve has made a sumptuous and tangible world far beyond our imaginations and this time manages to place within that world a thrilling war tale, a complex love story and the bitter rise of a naïve tyrant.
Now I am a
Timothee Chalamet fan, quite outwardly, although I have had qualms with certain
of his performances before, in particular Dune: Part One, which I
thought he was at times really quite poor in. At the time I hoped that this was
hopefully part of some sort of arc and although I was right, the entirety of
that arc appears in this film without any real glimpse of it in the first, so
whereas I am here acclaiming that Chalamet gives one of the best performances
of the year thus far and certainly the best of his career so far, it does make
Part One’s performance slightly feel even worse. Could the seeds of this
astounding arc into terror not haven been shown earlier? For as much as each is
their own film, they are titled as such and presented as such to be two parts
of a whole. With this film almost every single cast member is given more interesting
work to act with and it shows, every person is better here and I thought
everybody else was great in the first film, but there is just so much more depthful
material to work with that Zendaya, Javier Bardem, Rebecca Fergusson go from
solid to stellar simply by the virtue of working in more intriguing and more
dynamically rich scenes. But the film too boasts many new entrances into the
cannon, with Florence Pugh in a similar solid performance that feels like table
setting for the next film and is hence disappointing, much the same can be said
for Leya Seydoux who comes in and stuns the crowd, only to leave rather soon
after – which in a mic drop sense makes her turn incredibly memorable
nonetheless. Christopher Walken is also new here and is seriously given very
little to do, I’ve heard some people critique this is Walken just being Walken,
but when he’s actually given something to do then I very much doubt it would
have been a similar turn. However the film stealer is certainly Austin Butler
who although I think some of the ‘greatest villain ever’ praise might be on the
hyperbolic side, he does fall into the cannon of great supporting terrifying
characters who are in nowhere near the amount of the film that you think or
would like them to be and yet instil absolute terror every single time they
appear.
Undeniably a 9/10 that although will not rank highly in my personal Villeneuve rankings may very well be on a directorial level, his greatest filmic effort yet. It’s bold, it’s epic and it is indeed masterful. It is alienating that goes without saying with its legion of complexities on both a narrative and world building level and also in this case on a moral one too. This film makes Part One better for me and is for me the better film by far. It feels more whole and it feels certainly more interesting. Part One was a film of incredible world building, but promised things within that world and showed some rather than delivering a whole tale within that world. Part Two offers me personally everything that I wanted from the first film in spades and as aforementioned strengthens the first film by its existence.
P.S. I do however find myself in the same area that I was with the first film, in that I still only feel like I’m getting a half meal. For this film to once again end on a literal cliffhanger line, before ultimately concluding with an exceptional chose of re-framing the narrative, is a choice that although gave me goosebumps did leave me on a practical level thinking to myself how long it was going to be before I actually got the resolution that this film leaves one asking for. Although it does have a more clear and conclusive arc than the first film did.
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Thomas Carruthers
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