Movie Review: Dune: Part 2
If you have gone to an AMC in the past few years, you will have seen the famous Nicole Kidman ad, in which she talks about the power of movies. "We come to this place for magic," Kidman says as the ad starts, and sadly, very few movies have risen to meet her lofty words. "Dune: Part 2" is one of those few.
Paul Atredies (Timothée Chalamet) must unite with the Fremen to get revenge for his father's death. That is a gross oversimplification, but with the complex, interwoven storylines, it just felt like the only coherent one I could write.
This movie is a masterpiece. It takes an 896-page novel and (between this movie and part one) boils it down to 5 hours and 20 minutes, and it feels complete (as someone who didn't read the book). Everything that needs to be explained is explained; the rest is easily inferred or illustrated with visuals. A case in point is the energy shields that are used during fighting. There is no need to explain how they work (David Lynch's "Dune" did); you just understand how things like swords can penetrate the shield, but other objects cannot.
Chalamet brings a quiet intensity to the role of Paul (sometimes literally quiet in how often he is whispering). In the first movie, Paul loses his father and is forced to flee with his mother after averting their would-be execution. He has to earn the trust of the Fremen to raise an army to avenge his father's death. In "Dune: Part Two," we get to see Paul go through a lot to earn the Fremen's trust and become a messiah to many members of the Fremen people.
When my friend and I left the theater, he said this could become this generation's "Lord of the Rings," I can see that. "Dune" is a movie made with great care, adapting a book considered unfilmable by an ambitious director, in this case, Denis Villeneuve. It is a movie over two and a half hours, but I never felt it. I hope that Villeneuve can write/direct the second book in the Dune series, "Dune Messiah."
9/10
Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence, some suggestive material, and brief strong language.
2hrs. 46min
