Dune Part 2

We must first come to recognize the brilliance of writer Frank Herbert who created a new world with his words.

His story was so powerful that it influenced George Lucas’s Star Wars (which also owes a deep dept to the films of Akira Kurosawa) and it captured the imaginations of filmmakers for decades.

His dialogue so vivid that it could be written on stone tablets. It’s been 30 years or so since I first read Dune but the phrase Fear is the Mindkiller along with the whole wonderful speech lives with me still.

Filmmakers have attempted to ride the sandworms of Dune since the novel was released. Alejandro Jodorwsky’s adaptation failed to manifest in the 1970s. Instead we have a brilliant documentary about what might have been.

David Lynch succeeded in the 1980s and that movie has its fans though I and Lynch himself are not among them.

John Harrison made a miniseries of it in 2000 for the SciFi channel. It is a faithful adaptation and used cutting edge technology known as CGI to create the fantastic images required by the story.

And now with two films Director Denis Villeneuve has given us a perfect vision of Herbert’s masterpiece.

Paired with a strong writer, as he was with Sicario, and Villeneuve can work wonders. But he also wrapped himself up so thouroughly in his visuals that he gave us the muddled and boring mess that was Blade Runner 2049.

The thing about creative people is that in order to do the great work in front of them they must believe that they are the most important part of the process.

If the director doesn’t know that in his soul then it will show in the work. The same goes for every other man and woman in the process from the actors, to the costumers to the writers.

As a movie fan you can believe whatever you wish, I think the auteur theory is nonsense, but I understand why a director needs it to be true.

So, this version of Dune is filtered through Villeneuve particular interests. I suspect he loves Stanley Kubrick and Michael Mann a lot.

Each scene is visually striking and lovingly crafted and combined with the music and Herbert’s story you get a classic of science fiction storytelling and Hollywood myth making.

Timothy Chalemet makes his bones with this one. I thought he was too slight physically to make Paul work but I was wrong. He’s everything his biggest fans said he was and maybe more.

The rest of the cast pulls off the impossible, turning bold and, at times, ridiculously evil characters into fantastic and compelling humans.

Villeneuve can get what he needs from all of them with just a look.

And we must credit Villeneuve for embracing the weirdness at the heart of Dune.

Not just the sandworms and the religious ceremonies but choosing to have a fetus telepathically speak to her mother. Or letting the fate of the universe be decided in a knife fight only after a long military campaign.

These things are ridiculous but they completely work in the film. The fetus conversations are strange, terrifying and funny all at once.

And it mostly leaves the book’s fundamental critiques of organized religion and facism intact.

Dune, the novel, was so successful that it spawned 28 follow up books written first by Frank Herbert and then by his son and author Kevin J. Anderson.

When Dune Part Two ends the conclusion is satisfying and open to a sequel. Sometimes this can be frustrating, I threw my popcorn at the screen when John Wick 3 ended that way.

But that’s not the case here. Here it is the promise of another wonderful film.

It left me looking forward to at least one more trip to the desert and to the stars with Villeneuve.