Dune 2 is every bit as great as the first movie promised it would be
polygon.comEver since the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows movies were announced, two-part films have been a scourge on blockbuster cinema. At their best, they’ve often felt like hollow attempts to stretch lucrative material into something even more profitable. At worst, they’ve felt like two incomplete halves that make up a disappointing whole. But Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Dune feels like a special exception. The first movie, publicly billed as Dune and revealed as Dune: Part One only in the credits, handled the world-building and all the expositional heavy lifting. It all came with the understanding that the conclusion could be an all-killer, no-filler science fiction epic. And that’s exactly what Dune: Part Two delivers.
Dune: Part One followed the fallout as the Atreides family and its young scion Paul (Timothée Chalamet) were given control of Arrakis, the one planet in the universe that produces an ultra-valuable commodity known as spice. After only a short time on the planet, the Atreides were betrayed by the previous controlling family, the Harkonnens, who seized the planet again, nearly wiping out the Atreides in the process. Only Paul and his mother, Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), escaped to the deserts of Arrakis.
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All of this is worth noting here primarily because this sequel wastes no time whatsoever on a real recap. Instead, Dune: Part Two picks up with Paul and Jessica easing into life among the Fremen, the Arrakis natives who have made its harsh deserts their home. Jessica, following a plan established by the mysterious order of space witches, the Bene Gesserit, continues to spread the idea that Paul is the Fremen’s prophesied messiah. Eventually, she becomes a Fremen spiritual leader herself.
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