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Critics have dug their heads out of the sand to share what’s happening on Arrakis. Dune: Part Two, out March 1, is a triumph of vision, according to the early reports, but that doesn’t mean director Denis Villeneuve’s monumental scale and formal austerity have pleased everyone. For select reviewers, the film amounts to sand, beautiful sand, and some tepid anti-imperial themes. Other, more satisfied critical responses argue that Villeneuve’s casting and craft alchemy, juiced by a story with far more interesting beats than the first one had, make for an arresting watch. Part Two “belongs firmly to Zendaya, who gives the second half of Denis Villeneuve’s Frank Herbert adaptation an emotional tangibility that the first, in all its exotic majesty, eschewed,” writes Vulture critic Alison Willmore. New faces Christopher Walken, Austin Butler, and Florence Pugh reinvigorate the future hellscape, while the returning Timothée Chalamet does a movie-star turn, critics say. Let’s stick our hands in the popcorn-bucket orifice and see the first reactions from critics who watched Wonka ride the sandworm.
“Rather than soften the strangeness of its source material, Dune: Part Two shifts its perspective to one on the ground — to Zendaya’s character, the Fremen warrior Chani. She was more promise than actual presence in 2021’s Dune, a figure from Paul’s visions who’s only encountered in the flesh after the Harkonnen family ambushes and wipes out most of the Atreides forces. But she’s the soul of the new film, skeptical of all the messiah talk she rightfully believes was planted to control her people, and skeptical of this off-world upper-cruster who comes seeking refuge, swearing he’s not like the others and that he only wants to learn the ways of her people and help them.” —Alison Willmore, Vulture
“Whatever you do, don’t mistake this follow-up for a sequel. It’s the second half of a saga, which Villeneuve has hinted about wanting to carry through a third installment, provided Part Two earns enough for him to keep going. Like Christopher Nolan, the director is operating on the largest possible scale, pushing the medium to accommodate his vision. Also like Nolan, he has composer Hans Zimmer’s help in making everything sound as stunning as it looks.” —Peter Debruge, Variety
“If the movie is, among other things, a timely parable of Arab liberation, it’s at best a slippery and reluctant one, in which the politics of revolution feel curiously under-juiced. In retaining the material’s Arabic filigree, albeit with a glaring paucity of Arab actors in key Fremen roles, Villeneuve and his co-writer, Jon Spaihts, follow the text with a cautious, noncommittal blandness.” —Justin Chang, The New Yorker
“Like its predecessor, Dune: Part Two thrums with an intoxicating big-screen expressionism of monoliths and mosquitos, fevered visions and messianic fervor — more dystopian dream, or nightmare, than a straightforward narrative.” —Jake Coyle, Associated Press
“It’s only toward the end of the film, a mighty crescendo in which big, universe-altering choices are made, that the film trips over its own momentum. Paul’s complicated evolution is slow and steady until, all of a sudden, it’s moving at breakneck speed. It feels as if we’ve skipped a crucial expositional step in order to get to the massive finale sequence. Chalamet is an effective communicator of Paul’s tortured ambitions, but he has trouble making it legible when it really counts, because Villeneuve hasn’t given him the time.” —Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair
“Heavy with biblical themes of prophecy, sacrifice, redemption and resurrection — with Shakespearean grace notes of fate, family and revenge — Dune: Part Two manages to be busy and oddly inert at the same time.” —Ann Hornaday, the Washington Post
“Part Two is plagued by a nagging shallowness when it comes to portraying the Fremen, an indigenous people fighting for self-determination within the empire; the film has difficulty fully embracing the nuance of Herbert’s anti-imperial and ecologically dystopian text.” —Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter
“Chalamet and Zendaya make an appealing duo, and the two performers fit together with tangible ease as their characters grow close. Both actors are fun to look at, and every bit as watchable and glamorous as old-fashioned Hollywood stars (I kept wondering what product he uses to tame his curls), which is amusing but makes sense for their outsize roles. Chalamet and Zendaya tend to overwork their glowers and puppy eyes in their less chatty scenes (the desert quiet can make loose talk deadly), but together they humanize the story, giving it the necessary personal stakes and a warmth that helps balance the chilling violence.” —Manohla Dargis, the New York Times
“While the plotting in Part Two is undeniably richer than the first film, its greatest assets are once again on a craft level. Greig Fraser, who won the Oscar for cinematography the first time, tops his work there with stunning use of color and light … Hans Zimmer’s Oscar-winning score felt a bit overdone to me in the first film, but he smartly differentiates the cultures here, finding more metallic sounds for the cold Harkonnens to balance against the heated score for the Fremen. Finally, the effects and sound design feel denser this time, and the fight choreography reminds one how poorly this has been done in other blockbuster films.” —Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com
“Once again, the biblical solemnity of Villeneuve’s approach — along with the tactile brutalism of his design — have combined into a Timothée Chalamet movie that shimmers with the patina of an epic myth. And once again, the awesome spectacle that Villeneuve mines from all that scenery is betrayed by the smallness of the human drama he stages against it, with the majesty of the movie’s first hour desiccating into the stuff of pure tedium as Paul Atreides struggles to find his voice amid the visions that compel him forward. It’s a struggle that Dune: Part Two continues to embody all too well.” —David Ehrlich, IndieWire
“In Villeneuve’s hands, a sci-fi epic like Dune: Part Two can deliver what’s expected — big stakes, big conflicts, big explosions — but it can do so in a clear and rigorously consistent visual language that serves the story. Even in the biggest battle scenes, his camera keeps us focused on what matters most — the human cost of it all.” —Glen Weldon, NPR
“[Villeneuve] widens our eyes with big action hugeness — the products of an army of visual effects experts — but then asks us, as he did with 2016’s Arrival, to interpret and connect the dots. Less an act of literary fidelity than generosity, his sequel plunges us into the book’s messianic prophecies, but also into spiritual uncertainty, cultural conflict and doubt, as it must. Somehow, Villeneuve has made a Dune for right now — and tomorrow.” —Joshua Rothkopf, the Los Angeles Times
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