Movie Review: Dune, Part Deux

[HighPlainsGrifter]

This movie is pretty darned good. I watched it twice this weekend and there is a lot that's praiseworthy. For the most part I got lost in the story and let the visuals and sound wash over me. For the most part.

It's good but not perfect. 4 out of 5 stars

Spoilers ahead.

The Good
Visually, it's impressive as hell. The stark, shifting, unforgiving landscape is beautiful in its expansiveness and severity. The worms are perfectly imagined and represented.
Hans Zimmer's musical score is nearly perfect.
Life in the desert is sufficiently shown.
Harkonnen antagonists are stellar. The Baron, his son Rabban, and his nephew na-baron Feyd Rautha are awesome baddies.
I liked how the Bene Gesserit were shown. We get a good idea of their manipulation from behind the scenes and how their methods can be used against them.


The Bad
Important moments are suspiciously missing in the movie adaptation. For example, in the book Paul gives Chani his water rings which represent his personal wealth and standing in the tribe. He gives them to her for safe keeping. It's basically a proposal for marriage and she accepts. They are, for all Fremen purposes, a married couple. This is an important event and is much more meaningful than the desert romance depicted in the movie. When Paul proposes marriage to the Emperor's daughter for political purposes, Chani feels betrayed but the movie doesn't convey the same significance to the betrayal because they're just occasional lovers in a tent, not committed spouses in a long term covenant. The movie as a standalone story does an okay job of it, but compared to the book there's a big emotional buildup that is missing.

I didn't like Christopher Walken as the Emperor. I like Walken in almost everything he has done but he bungles this one. He's too soft in this role. Maybe he's too old. I say that because he has the chops for it but he's...off in this one. If he played the Emperor like he played The Man With the Plan from Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead, this would have been much better a role. My opinion.

There is a teaser that Anja Taylor-Joy is going to play Paul's sister in the upcoming movies. I have mixed feelings about that. She's a fine actress but she's in everyfukkenthing lately and I'm getting Taylor-Joy fatigue.


The Ugly
The writers and director seem to have fallen into the same trap as superhero stories. They play fast and loose with physics in order to create emotionally charged spectacles. Shields, for example. Shields prevent penetration by fast moving objects. Well...they do until they don't. Usually a shield prevents a stabbing, but when Gurney Halleck is gutting Harkonnens like he has a Groupon for it, the shields don't matter.
Shooting a shield with an energy weapon causes a massive reaction, like a nuclear bomb. For that reason, everyone is careful they don't use an energy weapon to shoot anything that might have a shield, including people. The first Dune movie shows that pretty well but they don't refresh the viewer's memory in the second movie. That's a problem. There needs to be an explanation why Harkonnens carrying rifles in the desert never use them. A Harkonnen death squad sometimes shoots their rifles, but as soon as the Fremen show up, they put the rifles on their backs and draw their swords. Shouldering distance weapons makes for some awesome hand-to-hand combat, a staple of the show's overall theme, but there needs to be a reason. Same thing with the Fremen disabling spice harvesters. Fremen have extremely powerful lasers that cut all the way through a spice harvester but they don't use them until their ground fighters have done awesome hand to hand combat stuff. Why? Is it because they need to disable the harvester's shields first? Probably, but it isn't explained. That's a problem.


Summary:
It's good. You should watch it in the theatre. The sound alone justifies a theatre experience.

[Carson]

Agree on the use of sound, Dolby is the new Sensesurround.

Taylor-Joy fatigue? ur ghey.