Dune: Part Two

Now Dune finally shifts gear from just being about turf wars to exploring broader themes of power, heritage and control.

These two films really have been a wonderful piece of technical film making, wowing the audience with their broad scale, cool sword fighting and keen attention to detail. For that reason Dune is worth the price of admission, I will always give the thumbs up to ambition and originality.

But there’s something emotionally gutless about it all that I can’t quite put my finger on. Villeneuve charts the rise of Paul Atreides pretty well and slips in perspectives from other characters to lend his story some legitimacy, but all I could feel was apathy. Nothing struck me as all that surprising or arresting, so although it all plays out with a great degree of skill I struggled to see it as more than just the work of great technicians.

My issue must be with the source material then, because I also cannot fault the performances. My forever-fave Rebecca Ferguson almost sneakily changes and reveals her intent through the subtlest of acting. Villeneuve spends a lot of his time in extreme close-up (which I guess makes sense when your entire cast is just extremely hot people) and she works with that beautifully; from the start of Part One to the end of this film you begin to realise that what she really is has pretty much been there all along.

Perhaps I’m not entirely sold on Dune then but I’ll gladly go and see the next one.