Been there, Dune that

As noted when Part One came out, two-and-a-half years ago, Denis Villeneuve's style and attention to theme and mood shines through in most of his productions and Dune: Part Two is no different. The visual splendor and Hans Zimmer's excellent score are the high points in this second half the same way they were in the first. And in terms of story structure and trying to encompass all of Frank Herbert's highly-developed universe, this film has the same flaws, in that the actual practical application of the spice and the enormous presence of the Spacing Guild are both absent from what was originally a highly political tale. But in this part of the overall picture, I think that that lack emphasizes a problem with the way the story is being received by many.

Dune is a story about religious fanaticism and how seemingly positive changes at one point can have distinctly negative consequences down the line. (Anyone thinking of the supposed Chinese proverb about the horse and the old man can give themselves a gold star.) That fanaticism takes many forms, from the Bene Gesserit adherence to their plan of breeding the ultimate human to the Fremen prophecies of the Lisan-al-Gaib who will lead them to paradise. Herbert rooted his story in many of the traditions of the Middle East and its most prominent religion, Islam, which itself is derived from the other two prominent religions of that region: Judaism and Christianity. That was intentional because one of the primary messages of the novel is that extremism is bad and can lead to unintended consequences. The Bene Gesserit not realizing that their perfect human might not be under their control when all is said and done is one of them. But the other is that when Paul, the nominal "hero" of the story, finally defeats the Harkonnens and the Emperor of the Known Universe, the immediate result of that is a crusade by the Fremen to deliver the message that the mahdi (literally "savior" in Arabic) has come and all worlds must bow to him as the Fremen do. (The irony of a group known as the Fremen (i.e. "free men") slavishly devoted to the whims of one man in the name of freedom and/or paradise is perfectly placed here.)

But that message is apparently too subtle for some, since people are coming away from the film with the idea that Paul is a hero (something that the novel almost directly states is the wrong thing and which Herbert wrote three more books to reinforce, as many had that problem with the novel, as well) or that the real message is about outsider Europeans exploiting a non-European culture for their own ends. That latter part does have some play, but it's not anything like what most should be walking out of the theater with foremost on their minds. And I think part of the reason for that, alongside the tendencies of many to look at stories purely from a "good guy/bad guy" perspective, is that, again, the practical elements of the Dune universe in this version are almost completely ignored in favor of the spiritual elements. Granted, that, too, is Villeneuve's style. His stories (such as Prisoners and Arrival) almost always contain a heavy dose of the spiritual, either central to the plot (as in the former) or driving its interpretation (as in the latter.) Dune has both, which might have made him an ideal storyteller for the cinematic version of it, but which also means that things like the Guild and the Mentats are left by the wayside, leaving solely the spiritual elements like the Bene Gesserit and the Fremen at center stage, which then possibly delivers a message which is actually counter to the one Herbert wanted to bring. One thing to keep in mind is that the structure of the novel is mostly about people standing around (or sitting, as in the excessively long dinner scene) and talking. There's nothing wrong with that. Isaac Asimov built an entire oeuvre on people talking about historiography and robot ethics and those are often really good stories. But they're also really difficult to translate to other media. 

Visually, just like with Part One, it's resplendent. There's a long sequence on Giedi Prime where we're introduced to Feyd-Rautha (an excellent Austin Butler) in which the "black sun" of Giedi Prime bathes everything in black-and-white until we step out of the sunlight and things like skin tones reemerge. The celebratory fireworks in that kind of sunlight resemble globs of ink hitting a windshield. Just as with Lynch's film, the most interesting visual touches almost always orbit around the Harkonnens. But the sandworms are also kept offscreen sufficiently to still elicit real menace when one of them bursts forth from the ground and the Fremen culture has a much more "lived in" feeling and, undeniably, a much more Bedouin feeling, as well. But the spice harvesters and gunships and other elements of heavy technology are also much more visually developed than in earlier attempts at the story. One element of this film that completely failed for me, however, was Christopher Walken. Not only did he not fit my image of the head of House Corrino, but he's been so typecast by memes and earlier performances that when his face appeared onscreen for the first time, I immediately muttered: "More cowbell." The part written for him was also way below his ability to deliver an impact, as it mostly required him to be looking pensive, whether someone was delivering bad news or Paul was threatening to exterminate his line. There just wasn't much of a part to be had, so Classic Line (or at least look) Walken was never going to have the room to operate, which means this was basically just part of the film's marketing, rather than giving real substance to the role. In the broad view, that's OK, since the emperor was mostly a stand-in in the novel, as well, but it still feels like an opportunity missed.

As with so many things we've seen recently, it's not a bad film and definitely worth seeing in the theater for the greater impact of both sound and screen. But just like I said with Part One, I've never been a Dune devotee (even if I do LOVE the board game) so anyone trying probably has a steeper hill to climb with me than most other viewers. This is the modern version of Star Wars for a new generation, but one thing to remember is that that film wasn't very good, either, once you looked past the visuals.