Director Denis Villeneuve's long-delayed (due to the Screen Actor's Guild strike), and long-awaited sequel to 2021's Dune, has already been widely praised as a masterpiece, and deservedly so. Epic, and not just for its nearly 3-hour run time, its a beautiful film, much of it being filmed in a vast desert.
The script is well written and actors Timotheé Chalamet as Paul Atreides, and Zendaya, his desert lover, Chani, return from Part 1, to fill the screen with youthful energy from the film's first moments, claiming it as their own. "Elvis" actor Austin Butler plays the nephew of Baron Harkonen, a worthy antagonist who also was well cast here, strutting with arrogance and hate on his family's dimly lit planet, where even fireworks appear black in the sky.
Odd to see Christopher Walken as Galactic Emperor Shaddam IV, who seemed a bit sullen and detached here, but that suited his character. Shaddam IV has watched from afar as the Atreides family became more and more powerful, and he eventually acts by allowing their rivals on the desert planet Arrakis, the Harkonnens, to slaughter the Duke Atraides and his family, missing only the son, Paul, who flees to the desert sands and comes to see himself as a messianic figure, and after discovering the emperor's role in his family's demise, a rival to the emperor, himself, as Paul seemingly abandons his desert love for a strategic marriage alliance with the emperor's daughter, Irulan, played by Florence Pugh.
The films (two of three planned in a trilogy by the director) are based on books by Frank Herbert, who was a giant of the Golden Age of Science Fiction - the early 1950s thru the 1960s. His world-building skills were epic and detailed, peering thru the script here in details such as mentioning that the Atreides family had 90 "Atomics" hidden for generations in the mountains of the planet.
The empire itself is thousands of years old, and yes, the Herbert books influenced other works of science fiction such as Star Wars.
As one can tell, this is a lot to absorb, but seems lighter fare than the first part, which was just as long but was mostly background to the empire, the families and the Spice, which is mined from large Worm creatures that exist only on Arrakis, and somehow power or guide all spaceships in the Galaxy.
The sheer power of the story is evident mostly in its second half, as The young Atraides publicly proclaims himself Duke and leader of both his family and embraces prophesies that he will turn the planet into a green paradise.
His mother, Lady Jessica, (Rebecca Ferguson) widow of Duke Leto Atraides, has taken the position of leader of an all-female religion known as the Bene Gesserit order. She stokes talk of her son as a prophet, often to Paul's disdain and annoyance, before he, himself begins to believe his own propaganda and embraces the religious aspect of his mission.
The film needs every minute of its nearly three hours, filled with Herbert's commentary on political intrigue, rapacious corporate captitalism, religious fundamentalism, environmentalism, and more.
