After escaping the Harkonnen forces, Paul Atredis (Timothée Chalamet) and his mother Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) escape into the desert of Arrakis to join the indigenous Fremen.
As Paul joins forces with the tribe, he is torn between his potential role as messiah and his fear of the destruction that could follow…
Watching this movie in the shadow of multiple crises, particularly the genocide in Gaza, is bizarre. This is a movie full of MENA references, from language to culture and history. Furthermore, the fact it is ultimately about how ancient power structures endure and evolve in their grip on power makes Dune Part II seem even more relevant to our times.
One wishes it had more to say with its weighty foundations.
As an action epic, Dune Part II is the kind of expansive epic we do not get enough of.
And in contrast to its predecessor, while the structure of the film is a little shaggy, Dune Part II feels slightly more contained.
The previous movie had a strange, distended close. It felt like the movie ended with Idaho’s (Jason Momoa) sacrifice, and then kept going.
Dune Part II benefits from time - with the introduction of so many new characters, it is hard to see how a singular adaptation could have handled both pieces of the epic story.
If the first movie is a story about betrayal and intrigue, Dune Part II is a movie about the rise/fall of a charismatic leader.
Is it an inversion of a white saviour narrative, or just takes the story past its end point?
It is not really a movie that interested in subtext - the film’s weariness of charismatic leaders is expressed literally through Paul’s interactions
There was a point at the third act where Paul accepts his fate - yet something was missing.
It felt like there was a step missing.
Suddenly Paul is willing to do whatever it takes to become a power player.
The film feels like a plot summary - there are themes expressed through dialogue, but that literalness, especially the lack of shading in the portrayal of the antagonists and the one-note portrayal of the Fremen, means the film never feels like it is truly expressing any kind of subtlety or nuance in its attempts at deeper ideas.
While the movie is about Paul’s fall, the film is so expansive - the introduction of Austin Butler’s Fayde is its own digression - and abbreviated in how it covers time, that it is hard to track the character.
It is a movie that wants to be about how passion can be used and manipulated, but the movie never grounds you in the characters’ perspectives, nor has the control to expand its scope to the broader power-plays and themes.
It is a movie to be admired rather than immersed in.
There are points where the film’s po-faced sincerity is effective - the few set pieces are mildly gripping - but it feels at a remove.
For a movie that wants to juxtapose passion and empathy with sadism and calculation, the movie is armontic and strangely sexless - there are two mild references to offscreen shenanigans but they are so elliptical as to be completely inert.
Maybe that has something to do with the performers - Chalamet and Zendaya do not have the chemistry to make their relationship work, which is problem when the finale depends on Paul’s choice to abandon her.
Austin Butler is solid as the new antagonist, his raspy affected voice echoing Stellan Skarsgaard’s as the Baron.
The one standout among the cast is Lea Seydoux who appears in three scenes and steals them lock, stock and barrel. Her cool, understated performance as an intergalactic femme fatale seems more keyed into what the movie wants to be.
It is watchable, and some of the aesthetics are interesting, but there is a monotone bluntness to the filmmakers’ approach that prevents the movie from reaching its full potential.
No comments:
Post a Comment