After having a couple weeks to process the movie event of the year, it’s finally time to jump in and review the masterpiece that is Dune: Part Two.
Disclaimer: There will be spoilers in the article below. If you have not seen it yet, hurry up and buy a ticket to the biggest screen nearest you. See the fucking movie already.
The best way to start off describing this movie is by quoting it.
“Lisan Al-Gaib.”
Memes aside, Dune: Part Two was near perfect in almost every single way and completely lived up to the hype. Everything from the acting, to the story-telling, to the cinematography was everything and more than I could ask for.
Before I start jumping into the actual story itself, I want to begin with the movie’s acting. Every single actor and actress was phenomenal in this movie, but two of them stood out to me more than the rest: Rebecca Ferguson and Austin Butler.
Ferguson was phenomenal as Lady Jessica. Her depiction of a power-hungry mother manipulating a path of power for her son and family was a sight for the ages. Not only were her line deliveries amazing, but her face-acting sucked me in and drove her standing as the film’s true antagonist.
BUT, it’s time to give some flowers to Austin Butler. After his overrated, subpar performance in Elvis, Butler excelled as one of the most remembered villains in the last 15 years. His performance as Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen was menacing and psychopathic, a fantastic portrayal of a truly Machiavellian villain.
His best scene was his fight on Geidi Prime in the colosseum. He is about to fight what is believed to be the final person left in the Atreides family. Butler’s villainous smirk as he gets stabbed by his opponent, toys with him anyway, and kills him left me speechless.
Performances like these really helped drive the story to its fullest. Denis Villeneuve does a great job turning protagonist Paul Atreides into an overzealous, power-stricken maniac. Religious fervor and bloodlust quickly turn Paul from humble servant to hardcore warlord. This striking transition simply can’t happen without incredible acting from Butler, Ferguson, and others.
Villeneuve made Paul this decade’s Anakin Skywalker. Although, it’s probably more accurate to call Anakin the Paul Atreides of the 2000s.
The real show-stealing scene was the final battle sequence in which the Fremen attack the Emperor. This might be a hot take but this is the best battle scene since The Return of the King. The Fremen warriors cut through the Harkonnens like a hot knife through butter, and Villeneuve really digs deep in his filmographic bag here.
As I alluded to earlier, the real standout in Dune: Part Two was the cinematography. I absolutely loved how they shot Geidi Prime in black and white. It was a great way to show how evil the family truly was.
It also helped bring in a different tension to the film. Plus, this movie has some of the most memorable cinematographic moments in the 21st century or arguably ever. One example is the shot of Paul Atreides making his way through the crowd as the Lisan Al-Gaib. The camerawork truly left myself in awe as the movie unfolded.
I already believed that Denis Villenueva is one of the best filmmakers out there, but Dune: Part Two might have helped cement him as one of the best all-time. The man simply does not know how to make a terrible movie and just created one of the best sci-fi movies ever. Whether you like the genre or not, this movie truly is a spectacle and one that I cannot stress enough must be seen in theaters.
Movie rating: 98/100 – Inferno
