Dune: Part Two

Star Wars has been described as Frank Herbert’s Dune with the sharper edges sanded off. When Denis Villeneuve began adapting the epic of space empires and politicized mysticism in 2021’s Dune, he kept all those dangerous angles and challenging elements in place, creating a complicated mythology interspersed with battle scenes that were more stomach-churning than exciting. He even had the audacity to leave the story on a cliffhanger, with Paul Atreides (Chalamet) and his mother, Jessica (Ferguson), seeking shelter among the indigenous Fremen of the desert world of Arrakis after his father and their entire noble household had been butchered by the monstrous House Harkonnen.

Villeneuve is equally unapologetic with the opening to Dune: Part Two, which leaps straight into Paul’s guerrilla war against the Harkonnens. It is increasingly clear that the rubber-clad barbarians are only the cat’s paws of the aging and disconnected emperor (a perfectly brittle Walken) and his daughter, Princess Irulan (Pugh). Yet Irulan is also part of the Bene Gesserit, the mystical and manipulative order that has its own agenda for humanity, scattered as it is across the stars and connected only by the power of the spice harvested on Arrakis. Plans within plans, as one character notes, and schemes within schemes are what really define Dune: Part Two.

The script by Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts keys into the most complicated strand of Herbert’s galaxy-spanning narrative, that of the interwoven pulls of faith and politics. At no point do they flinch from the Bene Gesserit’s lovingly constructed myth of the Kwisatz Haderach, the messiah of a new era, in which Paul finds himself enmeshed. However, this esoteric political theory isn’t dissected through discussions, but instead it’s explained through character. It’s in how Fremen warrior Stilgar (Bardem) transforms from crusty desert survivor to wide-eyed acolyte; how Paul’s love, Chani (Zendaya), deals with the idea that her naive nobleman is the physical embodiment of an ancient conspiracy; and in Jessica’s attempts to move from a mere cog in the machine to the hand that pulls the levers. But it’s all ultimately about Paul’s struggle with his engineered destiny, and whether he will take the path that will lead him to fulfill his terrifying prescient vision from the first film: clad in gold armor, leading a genocidal jihad.

Fortunately, Herbert provided Villeneuve with some of science fiction’s most despicable villains in House Harkonnen, with the returning Baron Vladimir (Skarsgård) and the Beast Rabban (Bautista) joined by Feyd-Rautha, a true monster played with sociopathic glee by Austin Butler. As Paul grows, so he requires more menacing adversaries, and a pallid and shaved Butler presents him with exactly the ghoul to make even that jihad seem like the better option. Not good. Just … better.

Yet this isn’t just about Paul’s growth. Dune: Part Two is really about Chalamet’s growth. His boyish good looks haven’t exactly hurt his career to date, and he was more than plausible as a budding young action hero in the first film. Yet his Bumble-friendly charisma might not have parlayed into what Paul must become: a guerrilla, a messiah, an ambitious and cunning political operative, a vengeance-fueled son of privilege, and an ideologue. In his most intriguing performance to date, Chalamet finds a new metaphor within Herbert’s work, steering the ancient schemes within which he is caught up the same as how he rides the giant sandworms that dominate Arrakis. Neither can be stopped, but both can be manipulated to the rider’s preferred direction. The underlying question is not whether Paul wins or loses: It’s about whether he remains a hero or becomes the morally murky protagonist.

Dune: Part Two is both horrifying and romantic, presenting a far, far future that is recognizable because people never change. While the war may be portrayed as a jaw-dropping spectacle, the answers to all those political and moral questions may leave the audience deeply uncomfortable. Herbert would be proud.