#MovieReview: Dune Part Two a must see futuristic science-fiction film

Dune: Part Two is a staggering filmmaking achievement, titanic in scope and greater still in execution.

This interplanetary masterpiece is easily the best film of 2024 so far and quite simply one of the best science-fiction films in history.

Over two-and-a-half thrilling hours, director Denis Villeneuve serves up a space opera so entrancing that you might forget to finish your popcorn.

The only time I was not fully immersed was when I was laughing at the sheer chutzpah of some of the setpieces on show.

It felt like watching Jurassic Park through woven fingers as a nervy eight-year-old or how I imagine it must have been to see Alien burst through the screen in the 70s.

Dune: Part Two is the true realisation of what movies can now do if the technology is correctly managed.

There are obviously hundreds of computer-generated shots, but they almost never fail to feel completely tactile when combined with the practical filmmaking Villeneuve demanded.

It is why Jurassic Park still looks good today but some of Marvel’s CGI-fests have already aged poorly.

Whether you’re on the desert planet of Arrakis or the nightmare world of Giedi Prime, you will absolutely feel as if you are there with the characters.

That world-building is certainly helped by committed performances from a stacked cast, led by Timothée Chalamet.

There is no winking at the audience here. Fights have stakes, death is final, decisions have consequences.

It is occasionally funny because the characters are, not because that is the goal of the film.

And that commitment is crucial, because a character calling out the inherent silliness of a fictional planet-flitting adventure through an imagined future would lose the audience immediately.

You have to believe that all of this junk is real for it to be effective and that is the real skill of a great director.

There are very few people working on the scale of Villeneuve at the moment and he has surely earned himself a decade of blank cheques to make whatever he wants.

Of course there are reasonable critiques to make of Dune: Part Two, such as it’s slightly confusing time jumps and squashed third act.

But this is ultimately a visual medium and there are vistas and fight sequences in this film unlike anything else ever committed to the screen.

How often can you leave a film saying you have seen something completely original?

Watch it on the biggest screen you can.

Rated 13 for Violence.
5/5.

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