Film review ‘DUNE: PART 2’ by Nick Gardener from ‘Built For Speed’
In 2021, Denis Villeneuve’s first instalment in his cinematic version of Frank Herbert’s iconic 1965 science fiction novel Dune saw young, floppy-haired Duke, Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) battle the invading armies of the nefarious Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgard) before becoming a desert dwelling, giant sand worm-loving freedom fighter. It was essentially a sci fi Lawrence of Arabia. While technically impressive and occasionally startling, the first Dune was emotionally inert, its convoluted plot lacked intrigue and its depiction of an alien world was largely devoid of menace and excitement. The second instalment is, for better or worse, more of the same… much more.
The film sees Paul and his Bene Gesserit or priestess mother Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) hiding out on the desert planet Arrakis with what appear to be Bedouin ninjas known as the Fremen. With their help, Atreides believes he can scuttle the Harkonnen empire by obliterating the source of their wealth, the mysterious, magical substance known as spice which is mined on Arrakis. With the Fremen raids scoring early victories, the Harkonnens send their most evil and most bald commander, Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen (Austin Butler) to hunt them down.
Once again, Villeneuve delivers some spectacular visuals with vast desertscapes, gargantuan war machines that evoke steam punk and HR Giger, strange, almost Dahli-esque space ships and scenes of enormous crowds and massed armies that look like real people rather than CGI creations.
The problems begin, though, when the characters open their mouths. They’re either spouting clichés in the sort of pompous monotone voices that infect most fantasy movies or, if they’re quirkier characters, growling and bellowing. As in the first instalment, this film just doesn’t connect emotionally and doesn’t give us a reason to care about the characters. Part of the problem is the weight of the source material, the epic 1965 novel. Like Lord of the Rings, Dune is a revered work and understandably Villeneuve and scriptwriter Jon Sphaits wanted to capture its complex machinations. The fact that they’ve been able to distil this enormous tome into a coherent film has to be commended but this means a lot of slow-moving dialogue as they try to build its convoluted political space war story.
Also, critically, the cast doesn’t quite work. Timothee Chalomet is fine in more intimate low-key dramas and he made a decent younger, family friendly Willy Wonka but here he’s miscast. He looks like a svelte, hipster uni student plonked into a sci fi war epic. He has little chemistry with the other characters including would-be love interest, Fremen warrior Chani (Zendaya). That lack of spark isn’t entirely Chalamet’s fault, Zendaya’s Chani isn’t a very interesting or engaging character and she just spends most of this film scowling. As resident villain, Feyd-Rautha, Austin Butler is almost menacing but his character’s quirks and exaggerated mannerisms make this an obvious performance rather than something more natural and intimidating. Thankfully, though, he doesn’t prance around in offensive leather underpants the way Sting did as Feyd-Rautha in David Lynch’s infamous 80’s version of Dune.
Some major actors are also badly underused in this film. Javier Bardem has precious little dialogue as Fremen leader Stilgar and his elation at Paul possibly being a prophesised messiah often sounds like something from Life of Brian. Josh Brolin makes an unceremonious reappearance as House Atreides’ cantankerous military commander Gurney Halleck and he just delivers a few perfunctory lines. Most disappointingly, a weirdly coiffured Christopher Walken almost parodies himself as the Emperor Shaddam IV. None of the characters evoke anything like compelling inner turmoil although Rebecca Ferguson’s Lady Jessica at least has a creepily calculating manner.
The film also suffers from a movie cardinal sin, ‘pissweak villain’. Despite their vast military machine and ruthless reputation, the Harkonnens are astonishingly inept in combat, regularly getting annihilated in battle and constantly bumbling into dangerous situations; I suspect the venerable gents of Dad’s Army would have given them a hiding. Consequently, the Harkonnen’s are not threatening so there seems to be little jeopardy for Paul and the Fremen.
A potentially intriguing aspect of the story was the role played by the religious class – in this case the matriarchy of powerful priestesses – in all the political manoeuvring. Unfortunately, this proves a little befuddling to those not intimately acquainted with the Byzantine political and religious systems of Dune and tends to involve involves static conversations between the priestesses.
Also, the political references in this film don’t bite the way they should. The Fremen/ Harkonnen conflict is obviously influenced by the situation in the Middle East at the time Herbert wrote the novel and sadly still today but it just seems like an echo of that situation rather than a compelling exploration of a cultural clash. Also, with Paul leading the Fremen, it creates the dubious situation of the white guy dropping in and taking command of a nation of non-white people.
It seems very likely that Dune will be a trilogy which means there’s another very lengthy instalment of this saga waiting for us in a couple of years. Let’s hope that, in addition to the astonishing visuals, Villeneuve finds something more compellingly human in this alien world next time because the story so far has been a bit of an emotional desert.
Nick’s rating: ***
Genre: Science Fiction/Drama/ Action/ Adventure.
Classification: M.
Director(s): Denis Villeneuve.
Release date: 29th Feb 2024.
Running time: 166 mins.
Reviewer: Nick Gardener can be heard on “Built For Speed” every Friday night from 8-10pm on 88.3 Southern FM.