There will be some spoilers in this one.
Starting immediately where the first film left off, Denis Villeneuve hits the ground running with no recap of the previous film and manages to make a film that looks like it filmed at the same time as the first part. All of that is to the credit of this sequel which had a lot to live up to after the huge critical and financial success of its predecessor.
I am a long time Dune fan I could say, I reread all three of the books in the original trilogy before part one came out and that was maybe the fourth time for all three. I was not a huge fan of the Lynch film in the 80s while liking some things in and thought the SciFi channel miniseries was OK. Neither really captured the story but that is a tall, if not impossible order for such a complicated and galaxy sprawling story of political intrigue and complex cultures. I am a Montrealer and have been admiring Villeneuve’s films for a long time and was excited to see how he would handle Dune and was not disappointed. I would not expect a word for word recreation of the book and didn’t get that. As a filmmaker myself I know that sort of thing isn’t possible or even a good idea. That said this second film strays pretty far from the text in ways I would not have expected. sometimes this worked for me, Lady Jessica switches from concerned mom to villain which takes three books to happen and I can see the reasoning for that. The story is compressed into month when it should have taken place over years and this is a detriment to the story telling. Jessica is pregnant at the end of the first film and still is at the end of the second meaning one of the book’s best moments and most intriguing character, her daughter born with generations of past knowledge, doesn’t really appear and worse, (spoiler warning again) doesn’t kill the Baron and that crucial scene is given to another character leaving her role in future films nebulous.
This is not the say the film doesn’t work, while losing my favourite part of the book is annoying it didn’t kill the movie for me. Its a HUGE beautiful film and the almost three hours past before I knew it. I think Timothy Chalamet looks the part but lacks the charisma Paul Atreides should have. The rest of the cast is fine to great and the film does a lot of interesting cinematography that might have failed in a lesser production.
2 comments:
I have not read the books, so lots of the story isn't known to me ahead of time. When I first saw "Dune 2," I liked it pretty well. But the more I thought about it and talked to other folks who read the books, the less I did. I think it is big and beautiful but ultimately hollow and unfulfilling. Spice, for example; we're never really told why it's so damned important, what it's for, why everyone's so willing to fight for it. Kind of a big point. Paul spends most of the movie struggling to keep from becoming something he hates but then, near the end, does a total 180 and seems to embrace his new role. Zendaya's character as a lot more interesting than his. Feyd was barely there, a bad boy for 10 minutes. I think the director was just trying to do too much. That he was successful makes me happy only in that I know he's got other great movies in him and if this allows him to do those, then more power to him.
I wondered even seeing the first that it might be a better film to people who have not read the book. He does seem to be veering away from it and spending time on visuals that don't tell us anything. I know what the spice is etc and all that so it it isn't apparent that crucial info is missing and Jessica never seems to teach the freemen the "weirding way" and I don't think we ever see a guild pilot or know what they do exactly. Might be too much for movies and might have been better as many episode TV show where they could spend a LONG time laying it all out. I thought the music was too loud as well. Get off my lawn!
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