3 stars out of 5
first of all obviously don’t watch Part Two if you haven’t seen the first part.
secondly, and this will be somewhat of a spoiler, and i know this is the “no spoilers” section of the forum … so if you absolutely don’t want any spoilers then stop reading here, but i feel i should mention it …
Part Two is not the last part … the saga does NOT end with Part Two …
this was my biggest disappointment with Part 2 just as it was with Part One …
When i watch a movie nearly 3 hours long i expect the story to come to some catharsis at the end - i don’t care if good guys win or lose - i just want the story to end so i can move on with life - no such luck with Dune.
Quite the opposite in fact - in fact the very last word in Dune 2 is “Begins” …
so after 2 hr 35 min of Dune 1 and 2 hr 46 min of Dune 2 you get to the point where something “Begins” … what a fucking ripoff !
aside from that Dune 2 has similar feel to Dune 1 which means
1 - you get your standard Denis Villeneuve cinematic shots that are very nice and frankly ask for a screen bigger than my 75" … i felt like maybe 100" screen would be more appropriate for this movie.
2 - you get your typical Dune power struggles / scheming
3 - you get Paul Atreides character arc continue to evolve
4 - some characters die, some new characters appear, some appear and die, some old characters come back from the dead ( figuratively speaking )
5 - you get some revelations about Paul’s bloodline as in any good soap opera
6 - you get some relatively tame romance stuff
7 - you get lots of action, some of it well done, most of it idiotic
8 - and of course some superhero nonsense and usual hollywood BS that movies designed for teenagers should have
the movie is PG-13 which means they are going for the BIG BUCKS because teenagers are the demographic that goes to the movie theaters.
as with the first Dune there are some premium, almost oscar-worthy touches in terms of beautiful shots, the acting is pretty good, and the power struggles / scheming might have a feel of a more serious movie but deep down it’s a superhero movie for teenagers …
but the biggest issue is the sheer time commitment - more than 5 hours between the first two parts just to get to “Begins” … i’m not telling you what “Begins” so as not to spoil anything … but Part 3 is certainly coming.
and it’s not just the hours you spend watching - those are quite pleasurable - it’s the 3 years we waited from Part 1 to Part 2 and now we will have to wait even more for part 3 - this is bait and switch.
i enjoyed Part 2, in fact i watched it twice, but i can’t accept the different parts coming so many years apart. they should have come at most 1 year apart.
3 stars out of 5.
PS: i didn’t do a separate review for Part 1 instead i mentioned it here:
what i said about Part 1 is pretty much still my opinion and applies equally to parts 1 and 2
