Dune: Part Two Review: Beautiful but Underwhelming, Despite Timothée Chalamet, Austin Butler and Zendaya

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Writer: Denis Villeneuve, Jon Spaihts

Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem, Austin Butler, Josh Brolin

Duration: 165 mins

Available in: Theatres

When Dune: Part Two (2024) opens with the commandment “Power over Spice is power over all”, for one brief moment, there is an unexpected synergy between Dune creator and science-fiction legend Frank Herbert, writer-director Denis Villeneuve, and the Indian grandmama who is the custodian of heirloom masala recipes. After all, if there is anyone who will agree about the importance of spice, it is she who has mastered Indian cuisine and knows how food can be used to nudge others to do your bidding (which is precisely the point of The Voice in the Dune universe). Ironically what Dune: Part Two goes on to falter at are two things that stereotypically grandmothers (particularly desi ones) have been excellent at: Storytelling and adding drama to any situation.

The sequel to Dune: Part One (2021) mostly follows Herbert’s recipe — there are only a few deliberate and significant changes — to serve us a dish that is grand, lavish and made with the finest ingredients, but is just a little bland. (Ok fine, no more food or cooking metaphors. Grandmama, exit left.) Dune: Part Two begins strongly, trusting the audience to remember where the first film ended and taking us into the desert planet Arrakis which is once again under House Harkonnen since the fall of House Atreides. 

Much like at the start of Dune: Part One, this time too the Harkonnen spice-mining mission is plagued by guerrilla attacks carried out by the indigenous Fremen of Arrakis. Only now, Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and his pregnant mother Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) are with the Fremen, strengthening their ranks. Some Fremen, like the endearing Stilgar (Javier Bardem), believe Paul is their messiah. Others, like Chani (Zendaya), acknowledge Paul is a gifted warrior, but the idea of him being a creature of prophecy is something Chani chafes against. She dreams of Fremen being led by one of their own rather than an outsider. For Paul, the idea of being the Kwisatz Haderach — a super-being born as a result of the careful breeding programmes carried out by the religious order of the Bene Gesserit — also feels uncomfortable. Yet the boy who told his father he didn’t want the burden of being the future of House Atreides in Dune: Part One now wrestles with a harder, more mature desire for revenge. To be able to command an army of hardy Fremen is a temptation that’s hard to resist when you want to take on an emperor (even if that emperor is a rather lost-looking Christopher Walken). Meanwhile, growing inside Jessica is a sinister, magical baby girl who talks to Jessica and is actively plotting Paul’s ascent to power. 

The Women of Dune

None of this should feel boring, especially when it’s being brought to life by a director as gifted as Villeneuve and a cast that has the luxury of squandering talented actors like Florence Pugh and Léa Seydoux in minor roles. To Villeneuve’s credit, there are strands of Dune: Part Two that are fascinating, like Jessica’s conversations with her unborn daughter. Fans of the books will perhaps miss the chance to see the “Abomination” — we do get a glimpse of Ana Taylor Joy as Alia. However, she doesn’t get any real action in this film — but Ferguson is magnificent as the manic and determined Reverend Mother, especially when she has whispered conversations with the foetus whose ancestral memories are sparked into being after Jessica drinks the magical (and poisonous) Water of Life. Zendaya as the proud and stubbornly rational Chani is also a joy to watch in a role that has been considerably expanded by Villeneuve’s screenplay. The way she grapples with her love for Paul and the politics she believes in, makes Chani all the more charismatic.

Unfortunately, Zendaya and Ferguson are only supporting characters in this saga. The burden of this epic rests on Paul and the spectacles that Villeneuve conjures as he realises Herbert’s imaginings onto the big screen. In visual terms, the imagery of Dune: Part Two is often stunning, but it doesn’t feel as impactful as what cinematographer Greig Fraser and the special effects team were able to achieve in the first film. Chalamet, though luminous in moments, doesn’t consistently seem up to the challenge of helming this space opera. Part of the problem is that there are no credible stumbling blocks on Paul’s path to greatness. It’s too obvious that Paul is the story’s overarching hero and in an effort to make a credible messianic leader out of the slight and baby-faced Chalamet, all the challenges that Paul faces are rendered toothless. There’s never any doubt that the Fremen who are initially sceptical about Paul will become fans or that Paul is going to win every duel. Even when all the Great Houses come to vanquish him and the Emperor himself shows up, the climax feels like an obvious setup to showcase Paul’s awesomeness. Obstacles are tackled easily, challenges take little effort to neutralise, and nothing feels powerful enough to truly challenge Paul. Villeneuve throws gigantic sandworms at us, takes us to the Harkonnen’s monochrome planet, brings in visions of a terrible war, and has Chalamet and Zendaya canoodle, but it’s not enough to make Dune: Part Two feel gripping.

Feyd-Rautha vs. Paul

Considering Villeneuve’s love for complex and unnerving subjects, it’s ironic that Dune: Part Two feels like a straightforward story about a hero coming into his own, rather than a saga of entangled ambitions and thwarted stratagems. It’s tempting to wonder how much more interesting Dune: Part Two would have felt if Villeneuve had let Bene Gesserit hold on to its air of matriarchal menace and the film had spent more time exploring the possibilities hinted at when the Bene Gesserit disclose Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler) is part of the order’s elaborate breeding plan. Despite Butler’s billing, Villeneuve doesn’t let Feyd-Rautha grow into a credible threat and even though there are obvious parallels between Feyd-Rautha and Paul, the film isn’t able to establish a strong enough connection between the two characters.

A contest between Chalamet and Butler could have been a mesmerising watch, but even though there are scenes that allow Butler to play a flamboyant villain and Chalamet to present himself as a ruthless man, neither actor is able to make enough of an impact. In the books, we’re told that the religious order’s original plan was that the Kwisatz Haderach would manifest in the child born to an Atreides daughter, fathered by none other than Feyd-Rautha. (Jessica’s decision to have a son and train him in the Bene Gesserit ways disrupts these plans, as we were told in Dune: Part One.) Paul and Feyd-Rautha’s duel is a contest between two possible futures, two men who are simultaneously drawn to and repelled by one another. None of this comes through in Dune: Part Two, which presents Feyd-Rautha only as the Bene Gesserit’s back-up plan if Paul doesn’t step up to the role they’ve assigned to him. When the two finally come face to face, the most dramatic part of Paul and Feyd-Rautha’s fight is the bald pate versus an enviable head of curls. Sinister, hairless and eyebrow-less, Butler flares quivering nostrils and grits his impressive jaw to impress upon us how much he’s acting, but like Chalamet’s attempts at roaring, the effect is limited. 

Also, at the risk of spoilers and splitting hairs, there needs to be some explanation for how the Harkonnens get progressively hotter and buffer with every generation. And, considering what we find out about Jessica’s pedigree, how on earth does she look as she does, with hair that’s positively dust-resistant and perfect eyebrows?   

Over the years, Villeneuve has proven himself as a director who simplifies complex moral dilemmas in a way that doesn’t strip an issue of intelligence, but instead makes it cinematic, accessible and emotionally resonant. Take, for instance, the twists and turns of Prisoners (2013), which explored ego and abuse of power to fantastic effect. In Incendies (2010), Villeneuve adapted a play made up of poetic monologues to make a film that looks at religious fundamentalism in the Middle East through the prism of a thriller. Arrival (2016), based on a novella, reimagined the standard alien-lands-on-Earth narrative and used a love story between a mother and daughter to examine the idea of free will. Villeneuve’s filmography feels like practically every film has been building him up to be the one who translates Dune, with its complex hive of ideas and concerns, into cinema and surpasses the previous attempt by director David Lynch in the Eighties. In a curious parallel, Villeneuve feels like the “lisan  al-ghaib” for Dune fans and there’s a lot the director gets right as he imagines Frank Herbert’s world into a sophisticated, cinematic spectacle. Yet as stunning as the film may look, it feels as though the basic building blocks of story and narrative didn’t get the attention they needed. For long-standing fans who know Frank Herbert’s books like Stilgar knows the prophecy in Dune: Part Two, they can, like the Fremen leader, draw upon what their pre-existing knowledge to read into what is on screen so that it feels more to them. The rest of us get to be Zendaya’s Chani — charmed but not won over, and both expecting as well as deserving more than what she gets.