I don’t give a fuck about Dune. Respectfully, I’m sure Frank Herbert wrote an incredible book; one that I’ll never read, because I don’t want to. But this was the second time I’ve gone to the earliest possible showing I could of a Denis Dune— not because I’m at all interested in the text, but because I’m interested in how he interprets the text and makes it his own. Unfortunately, this lead to most of Dune: Part One (and some of Part Two) being a massive disappointment, as Denis seems genuinely afraid to add any touch which could possibly displace authorship of the text away from Herbert and onto himself. What we get, then, is a rather staid, dreary literalization of a text which possesses the same bones, if not the same heart or mind (which I’ve been told is present in Herbert’s material), as the novel. 

After the first hour or so, I was worried Dune: Part Two would have the same issue, as it carried the same inoffensive but unimaginative technical prowess of the first without much below the surface. For my money, this changes as soon as we meet Feyd-Rautha. The first change here is a rather obvious one; we edit constantly between the washed-out color palette we’ve grown to recognize as Dune and an actual washed out palette: black & white. While I found the coloring somewhat distracting at times (the whiteness being picked up on the Baron lacked clear contrast, made his face look like a bit of an incoherent blob), I was just thankful to see any decision on screen which didn’t feel directly ripped from an existing text. Much of the 30 minutes following Feyd’s introduction continues to cut back to him and to Florence Pugh’s situation (as daughter of the emperor). For many, this might be distracting, as the story has mostly focused on Paul’s journey to this point. But, again, I finally felt like I was seeing true authorship here; not to say that Paul doesn’t interest Denis, but I sensed in these scenes he was allowing himself to become somewhat sidetracked by these other stories which he’s equally, if not more invested in. It makes for a somewhat messy narrative, but god did I appreciate seeing what felt like an authentic artistic choice playing out.

The remainder of the film (about an hour at this point) carries much of the energy set forth in these scenes, building upon genuine thematic intrigue which these films so often lacked before this point. This makes the action in this latter portion is so much more thrilling than it had been before; the literal scale of the world feels real because, finally, the characters inhabiting the frame are interesting enough to deserve occupying the same space as the world itself. (For instance— why the fuck am I supposed to care about a big space worm? Because it’s big? This is one of many things Villeneuve just seems to take for granted that we should give a shit about. But after a particular scene with a baby worm, and learning part of its purpose + the actual scale of the creature, the importance of the worm felt more earned from there on out. Now I’m invested in seeing giant space worms!)

This final third is by no means good enough to make up for all the flaws which come before it, but it says a significant amount about the achievement that I left Dune: Part Two more excited about coming (back) to Arrakis than I’ve been since before the first Dune trailer premiered (I was immediately put off by what I still consider to be poor cinematography). If Messiah lives up to where Part Two left off, than perhaps this whole exercise won’t be a complete waste of 10+ years of Denis’ career.