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Critics Consensus

Dune occasionally struggles with its unwieldy source material, but those issues are largely overshadowed by the scope and ambition of this visually thrilling adaptation. Read critic reviews

Audience Says

Denis Villeneuve's Dune looks and sounds amazing -- and once the (admittedly slow-building) story gets you hooked, you'll be on the edge of your seat for the sequel. Read audience reviews

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Dune videos, dune photos.

Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet's exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence, only those who can conquer their own fear will survive.

Rating: PG-13 (Some Disturbing Images|Sequences of Strong Violence|Suggestive Material)

Genre: Sci-fi, Adventure, Action, Fantasy, Drama

Original Language: English

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Producer: Denis Villeneuve , Mary Parent , Cale Boyter , Joseph Caracciolo Jr.

Writer: Jon Spaihts , Denis Villeneuve , Eric Roth

Release Date (Theaters): Oct 22, 2021 wide

Release Date (Streaming): Oct 22, 2021

Box Office (Gross USA): $108.3M

Runtime: 2h 35m

Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures

Production Co: Legendary Pictures, Warner Bros., Villeneuve Films

Sound Mix: Dolby Atmos, Dolby Digital

Aspect Ratio: Digital 2.39:1

Cast & Crew

Timothée Chalamet

Paul Atreides

Rebecca Ferguson

Lady Jessica

Oscar Isaac

Duke Leto Atreides

Josh Brolin

Gurney Halleck

Stellan Skarsgård

Baron Vladimir Harkonnen

Jason Momoa

Duncan Idaho

Charlotte Rampling

Gaius Helen Mohiam

Dave Bautista

Glossu "Beast" Rabban

Javier Bardem

Sharon Duncan-Brewster

Stephen Henderson

Thufir Hawat

Dr. Wellington Yueh

David Dastmalchian

Piter De Vries

Denis Villeneuve

Jon Spaihts

Screenwriter

Mary Parent

Cale Boyter

Joseph Caracciolo Jr.

Tanya Lapointe

Executive Producer

Joshua Grode

Thomas Tull

Brian Herbert

Byron Merritt

Kim Herbert

Greig Fraser

Cinematographer

Film Editing

Hans Zimmer

Original Music

Patrice Vermette

Production Design

News & Interviews for Dune

Dune: Part Two : Release Date, Trailers, Cast & More

Chernobyl Emmy Winner Johan Renck To Direct on Dune Prequel Series

Awards Leaderboard: Top Movies of 2021

Critic Reviews for Dune

Audience reviews for dune.

It's been said a lot and I'll say it again, Game of Thrones sci-fi. Dueling families, grand scale, dropping you into a massive world. And much like GoT, I sometimes felt like I needed cliff notes, and while I was intrigued as hell by this opening I can't help but feel the next chapter will be that much grander. It's a massive story told massively, and I am intrigued by it, but it is a first chapter. However, in terms of first chapters, it's pretty damn good. The sheer scope is enthralling, and the visuals are stunning. Not just that, the way the visuals tell the story. And the acting, every actor knocks it out of the park. It's great, but there is this lingering feeling that the next one will be better.

I didn't read the books but was very much into the 2000-2003 miniseries on SciFi Channel (that I still recommend, stuff like this just isn't being made anymore with the closest modern thing maybe being "The Expanse") and also had the recent displeasure of watching the original 1984 film. (Wtf was that?) Dune 2021 is still exactly the slow-burn, atmospheric space opera it was intended to be but now with modern art direction and cinematography that really pushes those elements. Granted this first installment doesn't work much as a standalone film and is very setup heavy for a sequel. However I liked the liberties it took with storytelling and my memory is foggy but it also made the narrative easier to follow than previous iterations. I feel the color tones used really did a disservice in convincing me how incredibly hot, uninhabitable and valuable water is on Arrakis. The film insists on informing me of these things but the super muted and cool tones and lack of heat waves on camera were unconvincing. Villeneuve was so focused on creating this ambience of a grounded, bleak political landscape that it feels like he neglected the immersion of a super heated desert. I appreciated that the film focused on setting the stage on Arrakis, but not seeing even a glimpse of the Emperor and/or the Spacing Guild felt like omitting huge players in the political narrative and world building. Anyway, a very good movie otherwise if you like slow burn dramatic space operas with heavy lore. I hope it does well and isn't forgotten like Bladerunner 2042. Would be a great shame if the unconfirmed sequel(s) not made!

I attempted to read Frank Herbert's novel Dune when I was in the seventh grade. I had begun to read more fantasy literature and was looking at older, heralded novels. I can still recall my frustration of reading those first five pages and having to repeatedly flip back and forth to a twenty-five-page glossary of terms so that I could even start to comprehend what was happening on the page. After those five excruciating pages, I gave up. Maybe I was too rash, and maybe my older present self would be more accommodating to the struggle, or maybe it just wasn't worth the effort. I never watched the 1984 David Lynch adaptation that was met with great derision from critics and fans alike, although it does have its vocal defenders (Hindsight alert: Lynch turned down directing Return of the Jedi to helm Dune). So when acclaimed filmmaker Denis Villeneuve (Arrival, Blade Runner 2049) became attached to direct a big-budget, large-scale adaptation of Herbert's novel, I was finally interested for the first time in my life. It was originally slated to be released in 2020, and after the studio planned to release Dune onto its HBO Max streaming service, Villeneuve and the production company negotiated to make sure a theatrical release would still be an important part of the plan. Alas, I watched the 2021 Dune at home, and I found myself enjoying the experience and development of the world building. However, it's unlikely to watch this version of Dune and feel like you got a full movie for your money. In the distant future, like 10,000 A.D., mankind has colonized worlds and the most important planet of them all is Arrakis. It's a desert world inhabited by poor natives, Freeman, who live a moisture-preserving life mining the natural "spice," a special substance that makes space travel capable as well as prolonging human life. The top family houses are vying for dominance and House Atreides has been assigned by the unseen Emperor to rule over Arrakis and bring it and its spice production back in line. Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) sees great opportunity but also great danger. The other houses will scheme to engineer the failure and desolation of House Atreides, especially House Harkonnen, led by the Baron (Stellan Skarsgard), who is like a mixture between Marlon Brando from Apocalypse Now and Marlon Brando from The Island of Doctor Moreau (plus with levitation powers?). Paul Atriedes (Timothee Chalamet) is his family's heir and much is expected of him, especially from his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), who believes he may be long-prophesied messiah. On Arrakis, Paul and his father must tackle this very delicate new mission while keeping the many adversaries at bay. As anticipated, Dune is yet another visually stunning and gorgeously immersive visual experience from one of the greatest visual filmmakers working today. If you can watch the movie on a big screen, or at least a bigger screen, then you owe it to yourself to do so. The sweeping vistas and startling science fiction imagery have so much power and grandeur to them. If Lynch's movie inspired a generation of devotees and impressionable children, I imagine that this superior modern version will do likewise. The production design and costumes are terrific and perfectly in keeping with the larger scope of the expansive visuals. You really feel the size of this world and its imposing weight. Villeneuve has such a natural keen eye for pleasing visual compositions, but he also has the patience many famous big screen stylists lack. He allows the moments to linger and to let scenes breathe in a way that feels more transporting and immersive. If you were simply looking for a visually resplendent movie-going experience, then Dune is the ticket. The sound design is also very smartly aligned and makes use of unconventional and alien sounds to make the movie feel even more like its own thing. When Dune came out in 1965, this was before much of the modern building blocks of our sci-fi pop-culture, so in a way while Dune was the influence it feels partially like an odd after-effect rather than a predecessor. The same thing happened with 2012's John Carter, based upon a novel a hundred years old that influenced many sci-fi adventure serials and now seems derivative even though it came before the many imitations. I was happy with the first 90 minutes of Dune and felt like the slow pace of the first hour, and its heft of needed but spaced-out exposition, was paying off with a thrilling assault. The concept of the protective shields is a smart way to communicate the casualties of battle, where "kill shots" are illuminated in red, informing the audience or a mortal wound. It makes for an easy to read visual to keep up with the development of battle and stay in a safer PG-13 realm. The whole rescue sequence on the mining station is thrilling at every step. The cast is another major credit to the success of Dune. Chalament (Little Women) has a soulful yearning to him, to learn, to be his own man, to prove his father wrong and then prove worthy of his father's faith. Surprisingly, the next biggest role isn't Zendaya (Malcolm and Marie), the woman that Paul dreams about (prophetically?); it's Rebecca Ferguson (Doctor Sleep) as Paul's mother. She's a woman with deep secrets belonging to a powerful religious sect that might be the real power behind the throne. Lady Jessica is more Paul's mentor than any man. She teaches him to hone and focus his mind, to use the "Voice" to impart his will, and to prepare for the hardships to come. With every new exposition dump, and she has many, we learn about her growing concern for the fate of her son and her possible culpability for that fate. There's a genuine warmth between them that serves as the film's emotional core. I enjoyed watching Jason Momoa (Aquaman) and Dave Bautista (Army of the Dead) as opposite ends of Super Good Fighter Guy, though Momoa looked unsettling without a beard. Needless to say, the 2021 movie is far more diverse than the 1984 movie. It makes space feel more lived in when it's reflective of a diversity of people that we already have at this point in our history. And then, after the hallway mark, Dune became a protracted sequence of chases and then I started to worry that things were just going to end in an unsatisfying manner, relegating the 150 minutes as setup for the as-yet-unplanned sequel, and that's exactly what happened. My mood began to deflate somewhat during the last hour of Dune. I was still interested and the visuals were still mighty captivating, but the events had the unmistakable feeling of being stretched out to meet a frustrating stopping point, a pause that didn't produce a satisfying endpoint. I just kept thinking, "Oh, they're not going to resolve this," and, "Oh, Zendaya is barely going to be in this movie," and the movie proved my predictions correct. It's hard to judge the movie as its own entity since it's so dependent on a Part Two that has yet to be greenlighted (though its strong opening box-office returns are hopeful). This is an expensive movie, possibly pushing $200 million, so it's quite a gamble to declare you would only be adapting roughly half of the story. Villeneuve's Blade Runner sequel, a movie I loved, had a budget of $150 million and a worldwide gross that didn't make the producers comfortable going forward with a Blade Runner 2050. To be fair, that was an original story, a sequel, and rather well contained. Still, it's an expensive sci-fi movie that has as much in common with dry art house fare as it does blockbuster adventures, like Villeneuve's Dune. The promise of a second movie is not secured. If Dune doesn't do well enough, we'll forever be left with a movie that feels designed to only be a teaser. It reminds me of the hubris of 2007's The Golden Compass where the filmmakers had a whole 20-minute finale that they carved out with the intention of having it be the opening for the assumed sequel (welp). Even when designing a multi-movie arc, it's necessary to plan each entry so that it can exist as its own beginning-middle-end and with a suitable intermediary climax. The Lord of the Rings movies each had their own climax, each moving the larger picture forward, and each had storylines and subplots that came to a head by film's conclusion. Dune doesn't. There are more dead characters by the end and certain characters are displaced, but it feels less like the end of the big-budget Dune movie and more like the conclusion of episode two of the Dune mini-series. My resonance with the source material is minimal, but the world of Dune feels stuffed with stuff and not as deep in the realm of commentary. Fans of the book series will likely thrill at the level of minutia the 2021 movie luxuriates in, allowing fans to lap up the lore. For those of us uninitiated into the fandom, it feels like there could be more going on behind the scenes. The book was released in 1965 and has clear parallels to Middle East occupations and quagmires, a subject even more relevant in the first quarter of this new century. There's the occupying force coming in to manage the supposedly primitive natives on a desert planet, replacing the last occupier who made bold promises that were unable to be met by the reality on the ground. The parallels of colonialism are there and obvious, but that's because everything in Dune seems obvious to me. The bad guys are corpse-white and dressed in all black. They look like the alien zombies from 1998's Dark City (itself referencing the silent sci-fi classic, Metropolis). The leader of House Harkonnen is this noxious man who bathes in black goo and sucks the life force from others. I don't need my sci-fi to be ambiguous about its heroes and villains. We clearly recognize the bad guys because they're grotesque. However, the lessons learned by the heroes seem a bit stilted. Its attacks on capitalism are a little more nuanced but not much. The planet of Arrakis could produce water but that's not in the interest of the power brokers of the galaxy. They need the spice for the economy and thus keep the exploitative status quo. The parallels are there but there's not much more to be had other than direct summations. The movie has more to say with religion and messiah figures but at this point we're grading on a curve, and the more complex commentary attached to messiah figures seems reserved for a Part Two. Another aspect I want to highlight that seems trivial but no less intriguing to me is how Herbert chooses his character names. We're eight thousand years into the future, spanning multiple planets with names like Arrakis and Giedi Prime and Salusa Secondus, and then we have such anodyne twentieth-century names like… Paul and Jessica? It's funny to me that Herbert goes to the trouble of coming up with so much jargon and terminology and alien-sounding names and then he says, "Hey, this guy's name is… Duncan Idaho," like he's a supporting character in Point Break. I realize this is a very dubious criticism, and there are other character names to conflict with this assertion, but it made me laugh at the different levels of effort Herbert put into his world-building and universe than selecting character names for that same far away land. After watching the new Dune, I went and watched the 1984 David Lynch version for the first time and was, quite simply, dumbfounded. I'll credit Lynch for many of the weird choices in style and how it never stoops to even be accessible for a mass audience, despite having characters explicitly narrate their schemes and motivations out in the open (by scene one, the power play that took up 90 minutes of Dune 2021 is awkwardly explained in full). By the end of Lynch's movie, it is an incomprehensible campy mess. I only have more appreciation for the 2021 Dune after watching the goofy (those eyebrows!) 1980s version that Lynch has disowned entirely, although that stirring guitar riff from the score still rocks thirty years later. The new Dune is only intended as Part One as its presumptive title promises, and because of this key artistic decision, there's a feeling of padding and wear by the end. I found myself reflecting back on the first 90 minutes more fondly. It's not that the last hour is absent great moments or audacious style, but it's hard to fully judge this Dune when its last line is its own conditioning of expectations: "This is only the beginning." The 2021 Dune is a visually remarkable movie experience with fantastic artists executing at some of the highest points of their talent. I'm eager to see if a Part Two can provide the satisfaction lacking in this beginning half. It's a hell of a start but it feels too incomplete and in need of an ending. Nate's Grade: B

Yes it could have been more psychedelic and I continue to be slightly annoyed by Villeneuve's obsession with imagery that is too clean, orderly, and monocolor for my taste (even the dirt and grime in his films are spotless) but the book's wonderful weirdness is still there and I was pleasantly surprised to see the heavy word building and exposition was neither too watered down nor so tedious the movie came to a screeching halt even time they had to explain what was going on.

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The word that will likely be used most often to describe Denis Villeneuve ’s “Dune: Part Two” is “massive.” Expect a whole lot of variations on the words “epic” and “spectacle” too. Whatever big words you apply to the result, Villeneuve undeniably did not approach Frank Herbert ’s beloved sci-fi novel with modest aspirations, and it’s his ambition, along with the top tier of behind-the-scenes craftspeople with whom he collaborated, that have paid off in this superior follow-up to the Oscar-winning 2021 film. While that beloved blockbuster often felt like half a film, “Dune: Part Two” locates significantly higher stakes on Arrakis, while injecting just enough humor and nuanced themes about power and fanaticism to flavor the old-fashioned storytelling. More than a simple savior or chosen one story, “Dune: Part Two” is a robust piece of filmmaking, a reminder that this kind of broad-scale blockbuster can be done with artistry and flair.

“Dune: Part Two” picks up so closely on the heels of the first film that the Fremen are still transporting the body of Jamis ( Babs Olusanmokun ) home again after he was bested in the fight with Paul Atreides ( Timothee Chalamet ). After the massacre of House Atreides, Paul chose to go with the Fremen, much to the consternation of his mother Jessica ( Rebecca Ferguson ). Thinking both Paul and Jessica were taken by the desert and all hopped up on violence after destroying the Atreides interlopers, House Harkonnen amplifies its attack on the Fremen, leading to a few remarkably staged battles between the warriors and soldiers. Villeneuve and his team deftly fill the first hour with battle sequences that counter the firepower of the Harkonnen military and the Fremen tribal combatants, who often literally emerge from the earth to destroy them. Bodies fall from the sky as enormous ships burst into flames in a way that feels nearly operatic. Amidst the chaos, Dave Bautista cannily sketches Rabban Harkonnen as a wartime leader who is in way over his bald head while Stellan Skargard leans even harder into a sort of blend between Nosferatu and Jabba the Hutt.

As the battle between the Fremen and the Harkonnens for control of Arrakis serves as the backdrop for “Dune: Part Two,” Paul’s arc from nervous young man at the beginning of the first film to potential leader plays out in the foreground. A Fremen tribal leader named Stilgar ( Javier Bardem ) is convinced that Paul Atreides is the chosen one that has been foretold among his people for generations. Even as so much of the mythology points to Paul’s savior role, the Emo King tries to blend into the Fremen, forming a relationship with a young warrior named Chani (Zendaya). Paul passes the tests put in front of him by the Fremen, takes on the tribal name of Muad’Dib, and vows vengeance against the Harkonnens who were behind his father’s death.

On another planet, an Emperor named Shaddam IV ( Christopher Walken ) counsels with his daughter Irulan ( Florence Pugh ) and a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother ( Charlotte Rampling ) on the state of Arrakis. It’s revealed early on that Shaddam basically sent House Atreides to its destruction, meaning he’s on that vengeance list that Paul’s been keeping, while Irulan serves as a sort-of narrator for “Dune: Part Two,” dictating some of the political developments into a device that’s really designed to keep audiences with the plot.

If the interstellar politics aren’t enough, writers Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts inject a nice dose of religious fanaticism for the inevitable think pieces too. Lady Jessica becomes a powerful religious figure of her own among the Fremen, guiding her son’s ascendance in a manner that feels nefarious and unsettling. “Dune: Part Two” is not a traditional hero’s journey in that it’s constantly questioning if being led by an outsider from another culture is the right move—Chani sure doesn’t think so, and Zendaya subtly finds notes to make viewers wonder what a happy ending would be for these characters. As Jessica and Paul learn more about Fremen history and culture, they threaten not to lead it as much as dismantle and own it. There’s a big difference.

While the plotting in “Part Two” is undeniably richer than the first film, its greatest assets are once again on a craft level. Greig Fraser , who won the Oscar for cinematography the first time, tops his work there with stunning use of color and light. It’s in the manner the sun hits Chalamet’s face at a certain angle or the wildly different palettes that differentiate the Harkonnens and the Fremen. The browns and blues of the desert culture don’t feel arid as much as grounded and tactile, while the Harkonnen world is so devoid of color that it’s often literally black and white—even what look like fireworks pop like someone throwing colorless paint at a wall. Hans Zimmer ’s Oscar-winning score felt a bit overdone to me in the first film, but he smartly differentiates the cultures here, finding more metallic sounds for the cold Harkonnens to balance against the heated score for the Fremen. Finally, the effects and sound design feel denser this time, and the fight choreography reminds one how poorly this has been done in other blockbuster films.

As for performers, Chalamet is likely to be the most divisive element, often feeling a bit flat for someone believed to be the Neo of this world. However, those choices add up in a way that makes thematic sense, enhancing the uncertainty of Paul’s rise. Zendaya is solid—although she lacks chemistry with Chalamet that would have helped—but it’s Ferguson’s slippery performance and Bardem’s playful one that really add flavors here that weren’t in the first outing. Finally, Austin Butler leans hard into the exaggerated role of Feyd-Rautha, playing the sociopathic nephew of the Baron with all the scenery-chewing intensity that a character like this needs to work, finding the emotional void to balance out against Chalamet’s tempestuous inner monologue.

“Dune: Part Two” has been compared to “ The Empire Strikes Back ” in the run-up to its release, and that’s not quite right. The better comparison is “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,” another film that built on what we knew about the characters from the first film, added a few new ones, and really amplified a sense of continuous battle and danger. Like both films, a third chapter feels inevitable. Critics will have to come up with a new synonym for massive.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Dune: Part Two (2024)

Rated PG-13

166 minutes

Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides

Zendaya as Chani

Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica Atreides

Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck

Austin Butler as Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen

Florence Pugh as Princess Irulan Corrino

Dave Bautista as Beast Rabban Harkonnen

Christopher Walken as Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV

Stephen McKinley Henderson as Thufir Hawat

Léa Seydoux as Lady Margot Fenring

Stellan Skarsgård as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen

Charlotte Rampling as Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam

Javier Bardem as Stilgar

Tim Blake Nelson as Count Hasimir Fenring

Anya Taylor-Joy as Alia Atreides

Denis Villeneuve
Jon Spaihts
Frank Herbert

Original Music Composer

Hans Zimmer

Director of Photography

Greig Fraser

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Timothee chalamet in denis villeneuve’s ‘dune’: film review | venice 2021.

Frank Herbert’s 1965 sci-fi classic gets epic screen treatment, with an all-star cast that also features Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Jason Momoa and Zendaya.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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Unless you’re sufficiently up on Frank Herbert’s 1965 sci-fi classic to know your Sardaukars from your Bene Gesserit, your crysknife from your hunter-seeker, chances are you’ll be glazing over not too far into Dune . Or wishing that House Atreides and House Harkonnen would kick off a vogue ball.

Full credits

Venue: Venice Film Festival (Out of Competition) Distributor: Warner Bros. Production companies: Warner Bros. Pictures, Legendary Pictures Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgard, Dave Bautista, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Zendaya, Chang Chen, David Dastmalchian, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa, Javier Bardem, Babs Olusankokum, Golda Rosheuvel, Benjamin Clementine Director: Denis Villeneuve Screenwriters: Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve, Eric Roth, based on the novel by Frank Herbert Producers: Mary Parent, Denis Villeneuve, Cale Boyter, Joe Caracciolo Jr. Executive producers: Tanya Lapointe, Joshua Grode, Herbert W. Gains, Jon Spaihts, Thomas Tull, Brian Herbert, Byron Merritt, Kim Herbert Director of photography: Greig Fraser Production designer: Patrice Vermette Costume designer: Jacqueline West, Robert Morgan Editor: Joe Walker Music: Hans Zimmer Visual effects supervisor: Paul Lambert Special effects supervisor: Gerd Nefzer Casting: Francine Maisler, Jina Jay

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‘Dune’ Wages an All-Out Attack on the Senses — and Wins

By K. Austin Collins

K. Austin Collins

It’s hard to be a messiah. Even before he recognizes that this is what he is, the young Paul Atreides of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune , played by Timothée Chalamet , lets the grief of expectation seep into his body, down to the drowsed slump of his shoulders and the toneless, contemplative wariness of his voice. The actor’s charm is kept in check; his latent vulnerabilities are in overdrive. Paul is the heir to House Atreides, whose fief is the oceanic planet of Caladan, a stony, rainy, tumultuous world, limited in its purview and power. An unusual home for a family said to descend from the ancient Greeks. But it helps to explain why everyone seems a little down in the dumps.

In another kind of movie, this quality would maybe seem less worthy of remark. A moody teen. So what? But Dune , as Villeneuve has ambitiously sought to tell it, is above all a story of empire, to which Chalamet’s performance lends an interesting texture, soft and uncertain amid the movie’s hardness. This is Villeneuve, after all. The conspicuous sense of design, the brutalism of its sets and sounds (the latter coming courtesy of Hans Zimmer), the overwhelming aesthetics: N one of this should surprise us. Villeneuve’s Dune is a thick, loud, well-fed spectacle of a movie, towering over the people in it with a brooding sense of intention — even in its quieter moments, even when wrestling through the Herbert novel’s wide-ranging, learned, quirky mysticism. But Dune is not just about the bone-rattling heft of its flying machines or its labyrinthine palace interiors or the intergalactic tangle of its imperial politics. Villeneuve must also wrestle with the oddities of the Frank Herbert novel on which the movie is based: the Bene Gesserit witches and their strep-throat vocal manipulations; the Fremen warriors of Arrakis with their blue eyes and violent devotion to the land; the gigantic worms with their baleen-like mouths; the psychotropic desert crop called melange — a.k.a. t he spice . I will never be able to un-hear Kyle Machlachan, in David Lynch’s maligned 1984 adaptation, saying it this way, in a horny whisper that now plays like an early foray into ASMR: The spice . There’s an air of mystery to it when MacLachlan says it. Villeneuve’s take is, by contrast, far less weird. It takes seriously the challenge of adapting a seemingly unadaptable novel, and keeping all its big-picture implications in full view. It earns its distinction as a faithful adaptation — and proves a satisfying movie, too.

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Hero’s journeys are satisfying by design. But Dune — both the novel and this adaptation — has more going on under the hood than its veneer of hero-myth rehashing would suggest. Chalamet’s Paul seems to carry the weight of an empire on his shoulders because, well, he does. Heavy weighs the promise of his father’s crown, and an eminent war that Paul senses he will have to fight. Paul is prone to visions of the future in his dreams. But one needn’t have ESP to know that there will be a war between House Atreides and their foes, the monstrous House of Harkonnen. The Harkonnens’ longtime stronghold over the desert planet Arrakis — rich with that so-called “spice,” which happens to be essential to operating intergalactic machinery — has suddenly come to an end. This is a strategic play, apparently, the workings of an overarching empire that’s pulling the strings, and it is meant to set these powerful houses at odds.

There in the middle stands Paul, next in succession for the dukeship of the House of Atreides behind his father Leto (Oscar Isaac). It cannot be coincidence that Paul, with his long coats and inward-looking sorrow, appears onscreen in a crucial moment like a cinematic successor to Caspar David Friedrich’s “ Wanderer Above the Fog ,” a lone figure staring off into a void of clashing uncertainties. One gets the feeling, just from watching Paul and Leto interact, that no one is under the illusion that any particular reign will get a chance to outstay its welcome. That’s war-torn space imperialism for you. Leto’s father was a bullfighter. His reign was cut prematurely short by a bull that had the gall to fight back. So: a doomed legacy. It hangs over the wary Atreides clan with an undeniable sense of reality — literally. The head of that bull looms over the family’s long-tabled dining quarters, watching over them as they enjoy the spoils of their power.

You could say the bull has been conquered, being a trophy now. Funny how it doesn’t feel that way. To say Leto and Paul make for a reluctant line of hero-leaders would be an understatement. Villeneuve renders it overstatement. The movie’s flashy successes and curious lapses both, often enough, come down to this.

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‘Dune’ Review: Spectacular and Engrossing…Until It Isn’t

Denis Villeneuve's adaptation has a majestic vastness, and most of it actually makes sense, but it's an act of world-building that runs out of storytelling steam.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

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In “ Dune ,” Denis Villeneuve ’s droolingly anticipated, eye-bogglingly vast adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 cult sci-fi novel, the characters fly around in airplanes that have three sets of wings, all of which flap very fast. The planes look like insects, and the film suggests that’s one way that a flying machine, in another planetary sphere, might have evolved. On Earth, we styled our airplanes after birds. In “Dune,” they’re modeled on bugs, which gives them a fluttery malevolence.

“Dune,” a majestically somber and grand-scale sci-fi trance-out, is full of lavish hugger-mugger — clan wars, brute armies, a grotesque autocrat villain, a hero who may be the Messiah — that links it, in spirit and design, to the “Star Wars” and “Lord of the Rings” films, though with a predatory ominousness all its own. The desert-planet architecture, which is bigger than huge, is sandstone Mayan. The spaceships are like floating rocks the size of cities. And the cinematic style is “Lawrence of Arabia” meets “Triumph of the Will” meets the most visionary cologne commercial that Ridley Scott never made. (The movie is more than a little enthralled with the clockwork imagery of fascism.) “Dune” is out to wow us, and sometimes succeeds, but it also wants to get under your skin like a hypnotically toxic mosquito. It does…until it doesn’t.

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Here’s one useful definition of a great sci-fi fantasy film. It’s one in which the world-building is awesome but not more essential than the storytelling. In the first two “Star Wars” films, those dynamics were in perfect sync; they were, as well, in “The Dark Knight” and the “Mad Max” films. “Blade Runner,” in its way, is an amazing movie, but its world-building packs more punch than its transcendental neo-noir noodlings.

Viewed in that light, “Dune” is a movie that earns five stars for world-building and about two-and-a-half for storytelling. If you stack it up next to David Lynch’s disastrously confounding 1984 adaptation of “Dune,” it can look like a masterpiece. (Most of the story now makes sense.) And for an hour or so, the movie is rather mesmerizing, throwing off seductive glints of treachery as it presents the tale of Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), the gifted scion of the House Atreides, whose father, Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac), is leading what looks to be an opportunity, though one that’s fraught with peril.

For 80 years, the forbidding desert planet of Arrakis has been presided over by the Harkonnen, who ruled with an iron fist as they controlled production of the valuable spice that’s embedded in the sand and the air. (In the book, the spice, called mélange, is a metaphor for oil and also for drugs. Here it’s a glittery abstraction.) Now, the emperor has ordered the Harkonnen to leave Arrakis and has placed the House Atreides in charge. They arrive like a newly occupying army. But they’re being set up as patsies.

Villeneuve works hard to to stay true to the conspiratorial sprawl of Herbert’s sand-planet dream, even as he streamlines the book down to its most playable scenes. Chalamet, tall and skinny, with a quizzical innocence under his cloud of curls, resembles a willowy version of Edward Scissorhands, and he plays Paul as an untested hero with abilities he scarcely understands. They’re inherited from his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), an acolyte of the mystic matriarchal sect the Bene Gesserit, who wants to put him in touch with his inner cosmic savior.

There are good scenes like one in which Paul learns to speak to his mother telepathically; or receives a lesson from Isaac’s warmly protective but all-too-vulnerable Leto, who speaks to him about the human choices encoded within destiny; or gets put through a primal test by his aunt, Gaius Helen Mohiam (Charlotte Rampling) — those names! Yes, they’re as annoying as the ones in the George Lucas prequels — who asks him to place his hand in a box of pain and withstand it. (He’d better; if he fails, she’ll stab his neck with a lethal needle.) Stellan Skarsgård, nearly unrecognizable as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, who’s like a floating homicidal Jabba the Hutt crossed with Henry VIII crossed with Fat Bastard, sets the plot in motion, reclaiming Arrakis by trying to kill off just about everyone in the movie who most holds our attention.

His success rate is a bit disarming. The hand-to-hand combat scenes in “Dune” have a flash of originality. Instead of lightsabers, the characters hit each with other weapons that reduce their bodies to electromagnetic freeze frames. It’s exciting to see Duncan Idaho, played by Jason Momoa as the film’s sexy-loyal-bruiser Han Solo figure, take on a small army of enemies.

Yet where is all of this going? “Dune” keeps foreshadowing the moment when Paul will embed himself with the Fremen, the indigenous desert people of Arrakis who have a more organic relationship to the perilous landscape, and to the spice, than any of their rulers, but live in a state of ragged guerrilla oppression. They’re waiting for someone to liberate them, and Paul would seem to be that figure, since it’s prophesied by half a dozen interchangeable flash-forwards to his interface with Chani ( Zendaya ), a Fremen warrior-protector who is shot like some sort of desert princess.

“Dune” opens with a title that reads “Dune Part I,” and there’s a standard but rather presumptuous promise embedded in those words: that after 2 hours and 35 minutes, we’ll be so hooked by this saga that we’ll be hungry for Part II. That, in a way, is the promise of every franchise. But the trouble with “Dune” is that it feels, at different points, like just about every other franchise. Over the decades, more than a few movies have been sprung from the DNA of Herbert’s universe, like (for instance) the opening act of “Star Wars.” And there’s a reason it’s that film’s first part; the desert is an awfully barren setting for sci-fi. (“Star Wars” starts slow and arid on purpose, all to set up the revelation of its kinetic second half.) “Dune” is rich with “themes” and visual motifs, but it turns into a movie about Chalamet’s Paul piloting through sandstorms and hooking up with the rebels of the desert, who in this movie are a lot more noble than interesting.

It’s not just that the story loses its pulse. It loses any sense that we’re emotionally invested in it. The giant sandworms, who are protectors of the spice and burrow through the desert like a sinister underground tornado until they reveal themselves (they’re like monster nostrils that suck in everything in front of them), are good for a moment or two of old-fashioned creature-feature awe, but what, really, do they have to do with anything? “Dune” makes the worms, the dunes, the paramilitary spectacle, and the kid-savior-tests-his-mettle plot immersive — for a while. But then, as the movie begins to run out of tricks, it turns woozy and amorphous. Will Part II really be coming? It will if Part I is successful enough, and that isn’t foregone. It’s hard to build a cliffhanger on shifting sands.

Reviewed at Venice Film Festival (Out of Competition), Sept. 3, 2021. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 155 MIN.

Production: A Warner Bros. Pictures release of a Legendary Pictures, Villeneuve Films, Warner Bros. production. Producers: Denis Villeneuve, Mary Parent, Cale Boyter, Joe Caracciolo Jr. Executive producers: Herbert W. Gains, Joshua Grode, John Harrison, Brian Herbert, Kim Herbert, Tanya Lapointe, Byron Merritt, Richard P. Rubenstein, Jon Spaihts, Thomas Tull.
Crew: Director: Denis Villeneuve. Screenplay: Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve, Eric Roth. Camera: Greig Fraser. Editor: Joe Walker. Music: Hans Zimmer.
With: Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Jason Momoa, Zendaya, Charlotte Rampling, Dave Bautista, Javier Bardem, Sharon Duncan Brewster, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Chang Chen, David Dastmalchian.

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Review: Denis Villeneuve’s ‘Dune’ is a transporting vision, but it could use a touch more madness

Two men cling to a futuristic craft in the movie "Dune."

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The Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic . Because moviegoing carries risks during this time, we remind readers to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local health officials .

The story in “Dune” is set in motion by an ambitious, unwieldy and ill-advised transfer of power — an undertaking that extracts a terrible cost and seems doomed to end in frustration and defeat. Something similar might be said of the previous major attempts to wrest Frank Herbert’s 1965 literary colossus to the big screen, even if recent history has sometimes looked back on those failures with a forgiving smile. Alejandro Jodorowsky’s assuredly trippy, never-completed version has become a much-mythologized cinematic ruin . David Lynch’s 1984 flop, reviled by many (including Lynch himself), can still inspire spasms of admiration for its mix of narrative intransigence and visionary strangeness.

Still, to the extent that “Dune” endures, it does so on the strengths of Herbert’s extraordinarily prescient work — its echoes of a real world ravaged by oil wars, climate change and other consequences of human greed — rather than anything to do with its dubious cinematic legacy. Not least among the book’s mysteries is that it has shaped the iconography of so many classic science-fiction and fantasy films — most obviously, though not exclusively, “Star Wars” — without yielding a classic of its own. Conventional wisdom has long held that “Dune” is unfilmable , that its interlocking parables of colonial oppression, ecological disaster and messianic deliverance are too vast to be contained within the flattening parameters of the cinema screen.

The magisterially brooding new “Dune,” just unveiled at the Venice International Film Festival and slated to reach U.S. theaters and HBO Max subscribers Oct. 22, boldly seeks to reverse that prophecy. With methodical poise and seat-rattling spectacle, the French Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve (who wrote the script with Jon Spaihts and Eric Roth) draws you into an astonishingly vivid, sometimes plausibly unnerving vision of the future. If those cursed earlier stabs at “Dune” were examples of what the French call a “film maudit,” this imposing new vision aspires to be the opposite: perhaps a “film Mahdi,” to reference the Arabic word often hurled at the young savior-to-be, Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), as he embraces his destiny.

Caption: ZENDAYA as Chani in Warner Bros. Pictures' and Legendary Pictures' action adventure "DUNE," a Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary release.

‘Dune: Part One’ ending explained: Where could a sequel go from here?

The new film “Dune” ends on a cliffhanger. With the second half of Frank Herbert’s classic story still to tell — not to mention all its sequels and prequels — where will the “Dune” universe go from here?

Oct. 24, 2021

The fulfillment of that destiny will have to wait; “Dune: Part One,” as it’s billed onscreen, is the first in a projected two-part adaptation, which means that any assessment of Villeneuve’s achievement must be provisional at best. For now, it’s hard to deny the excitement of feeling swept up in this movie’s great squalls of sand, spice and interplanetary intrigue, realized with a level of craft so overpowering in its dust-choked aridity that you may want to pull your mask up a little tighter in the theater. You may also feel a more qualified sense of admiration for Villeneuve’s efforts to preserve yet streamline the novel’s imaginative essence, to translate Herbert’s heady conceits and arcane nomenclature into a prestige blockbuster idiom.

Whether he succeeds — and for an impressive stretch, I think he does — his own meteoric Hollywood ascent has clearly prepared him for the assignment. This isn’t the first time Villeneuve has evinced a superb eye for the textural and chromatic nuances of sand, as the Mideast deserts of “Incendies,” the U.S.-Mexico border zones of “Sicario” and the Las Vegas ruins of “Blade Runner 2049” will attest. And like “Blade Runner 2049” and especially “Arrival,” “Dune” is an unusually philosophical speculative fiction that ponders the difficulties of language and coexistence.

As the movie opens, a superficial detente has been orchestrated between the warring royal strongholds of Atreides and Harkonnen, led respectively by the noble Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) and the grotesque Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (a prosthetically transfigured Stellan Skarsgard). “Dune” heads will know the rest: By imperial decree, House Harkonnen must relinquish stewardship of the desert planet Arrakis, a.k.a. Dune, which is at once inhospitable to life and a much-coveted source of it. House Atreides will assume control of the planet as well as its rich concentrations of spice, a drug-like substance whose life-extending properties have made it the most prized commodity in the universe.

**SNEAKS FOR FALL 2021 DO NOT USE PRIOR 8/29/21: Timothee Chalamet as Paul Atreides in "Dune."

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Heralded as the best sci-fi novel of all time, previous adaptations of Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’ have fizzled. Now it’s Denis Villeneuve’s turn.

Aug. 24, 2021

Notably, these narrative preliminaries are laid out by Chani (Zendaya), one of the Fremen, the thick-skinned, blue-eyed Indigenous people of Arrakis. Long acclimated to the planet’s sweltering heat and deadly giant sandworms, they’ve suffered bitterly under their cruel Harkonnen overlords and have no reason to suspect the Atreides will be any different. Villeneuve’s sympathetic focus on the Fremen feels like an early declaration of principle, a promise that this “Dune” might radically reframe the story from their perspective. For much of the movie, though, Chani and her people remain fleeting presences, glimpsed only in the gauzy visions of Duke Leto’s son, Paul.

Chalamet, always good at suggesting both youthful callowness and limitless potential, proves an inspired choice for the role of a young man who is both a coddled heir and an intriguingly unknown quantity. On the Atreides’ home planet of Caladan, he is trained with avuncular affection by his father’s retainers, including the brilliant security expert Thufir Hawat (Stephen McKinley Henderson), the brawny swordmaster Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa) and the skilled weapons teacher Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin, not exactly the “ugly lump of a man” described in the book). Paul is also a source of pride and anxiety for the Duke, movingly played by Isaac as a leader who longs to do right by his family, his people and the Fremen, even as he suspects that House Atreides might be stepping into a carefully laid trap.

Timothée Chalamet and Rebecca Ferguson in "Dune."

But Paul’s most important mentor is his mother, Lady Jessica (a superb Rebecca Ferguson), a member of a shadowy, oracular sisterhood known as the Bene Gesserit for whom Paul poses both a problem and a source of fascination. Led by an imperious Reverend Mother (a heavily veiled but unmistakable Charlotte Rampling), the Bene Gesserit are versed in many skills including “the Voice,” a form of mind control rendered here via menacing aural distortions that — along with the soundtrack’s low, ominous rumbles and Hans Zimmer’s pulsating score — make “Dune” a symphony for the ears as well as a feast for the eyes.

It is, admittedly, a rather monochromal feast, dryer than it is rich, notwithstanding a luscious early shot of the Arrakis dunes that brings to mind the crisped swirls of an overbaked meringue. Much of the palace intrigue plays out in muted tones and symmetrical compositions (the cinematography is by the great Greig Fraser), part of a rigorously color-controlled aesthetic that extends to Patrice Vermette’s futuro-brutalist production design and Jacqueline West’s slickly utilitarian costumes. A cold, fascist sheen seems to cling to the Atreides’ regal formations and their state-of-the-art ornithopters (like helicopters, but with blades that flutter like insect wings), all flawless design elements in a pageant of technological might and militaristic order.

Villeneuve means to subvert and disrupt that pageant, something he accomplishes in part by consciously elevating the women in this male-dominated story. Ferguson’s forceful presence in the expanded role of Lady Jessica is one example; another is the gender recasting of Liet Kynes (a striking Sharon Duncan-Brewster), Arrakis’ deeply knowledgeable planetologist. It’s Kynes who helps the Atreides adjust to their desert environs, at one point accompanying them to a spice-harvesting site where they get their terrifying first glimpse of a giant sandworm in action, its great maw swirling open like a raging quicksand vortex.

This action sequence and others are handled with masterly assurance, including several scenes of intimate combat performed with form-fitting, blood-concealing energy shields. But as ever, Villeneuve’s true talent is less in the staging of violence than in the queasy anticipation of it; he loves to linger in the looming threat of mayhem, in the tense moments before the (sand)worm turns. That gift serves him well enough in “Dune,” whose plot hinges on encroaching threats, assassination attempts and a series of devastating betrayals that send Paul and Lady Jessica fleeing into the desert where there await still more perils, possibilities and encounters with the Fremen (led by a sly Javier Bardem).

Caption: TIMOTHEE CHALAMET as Paul Atreides in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures' action adventure "DUNE," a Warner Bros. Pictures release.

Why ‘Dune’ made these 5 key changes from Frank Herbert’s book

“Dune” director Denis Villeneuve discusses several significant departures from the sci-fi classic source material.

Oct. 21, 2021

Until the movie slams to an abrupt, unsatisfying halt halfway through the events of Herbert’s novel, there’s pleasure in watching this particular game of thrones play out, though perhaps more pleasure than depth or meaning. To call this “Dune” a remarkably lucid work is to praise it with very faint damnation. Perhaps reluctant to alienate the novices in the audience, Villeneuve has ironed out many of the novel’s convolutions, to the likely benefit of comprehension but at the expense of some rich, imaginative excess. Herbert’s more memorable flights of linguistic fancy, like “gom jabbar” and “Kwisatz Haderach,” are spoken once, with a faint air of embarrassed obligation, and seldom mentioned again. A more significant casualty is the book’s layered interiority, its skill at turning unspoken perceptions and motives into drama; the writers have managed this material without mastering it.

Lynch’s compromised version was similarly stymied and more clotted with exposition. But it also had the courage of its demented convictions, as well as a fearless commitment to feverish, pustular imagery that makes Villeneuve’s pristine filmmaking seem almost timid by comparison. Not for the first time, his craft seems to exist mainly for its own sake; it’s the hallmark of a filmmaker who’s more logistician than thinker, more technician than artist. As a visual and visceral experience, “Dune” is undeniably transporting. As a spectacle for the mind and heart, it never quite leaves Earth behind.

And perhaps that’s as it should be, at least at this early stage. With any luck, there will be more to see and much more to think about in “Dune: Part Two,” the completion of which will depend to some degree on this first movie’s fortunes. Will “Dune” conjure enough coin — the spice of the Hollywood realm — to see itself through to completion? I suspect it might, in part because I doubt Villeneuve, a filmmaker more dependable than he is interesting, has it in him to add to “Dune’s” string of memorably catastrophic failures. Dust has long been his truest cinematic habitat, and to dust may he return.

‘Dune: Part One’

Rated: PG-13, for sequences of strong violence, some disturbing images and suggestive material Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes Playing: Starts Oct. 22 in general release and on HBO Max

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Dune: Part One

A noble family becomes embroiled in a war for control over the galaxy's most valuable asset while its heir becomes troubled by visions of a dark future. A noble family becomes embroiled in a war for control over the galaxy's most valuable asset while its heir becomes troubled by visions of a dark future. A noble family becomes embroiled in a war for control over the galaxy's most valuable asset while its heir becomes troubled by visions of a dark future.

Denis Villeneuve
Jon Spaihts
Timothée Chalamet
Rebecca Ferguson
5.8K User reviews
539 Critic reviews
74 Metascore
173 wins & 294 nominations total

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Rebecca Ferguson in Dune: Part One (2021)

Paul Atreides

Lady Jessica Atreides

Duke Leto Atreides

Duncan Idaho

Baron Vladimir Harkonnen

Thufir Hawat

Gurney Halleck

Dr. Liet Kynes

Dr. Wellington Yueh

Glossu Rabban Harkonnen

Piter de Vries

Reverend Mother Mohiam

Herald of the Change
(as Benjamin Clementine)

Bene Gesserit Sister

Shadout Mapes
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Trivia Denis Villeneuve confirmed in a Vanity Fair article that his adaptation of Dune will be split into two films in order to ensure that the original story would be "preserved and not cut into a million pieces." However, contrary to the common practice of filming several installments back to back, only the first movie (which roughly covers the first half of the source novel) was greenlit and produced, with an optional sequel depending on how well the first film performed. A sequel was greenlit on the Tuesday after the film opened. According to production designer Patrice Vermette , the movie was originally supposed to end later in the story, but during pre-production, these final scenes were shifted to the sequel, meaning that some of the preparation for Dune: Part Two (2024) had already been done.
Goofs Despite several mentions of the intensity of the sun on Arrakis, no character ever wears any eye protection.

Lady Jessica Atreides : I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings obliteration. I will face my fear and I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past... I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

Crazy credits At the start of the film, a Sardaukar priest chants "Dreams are messages from the deep" as a prologue as it is subtitled onscreen.
Connections Featured in Black and White Sports Too: Dune Trailer Reaction! Official 2020 - Oscar Isaac, Jason Momoa, Josh Brolin (2020)
Soundtracks Tooth of Shai Hulud Performed by Czarina Russell Written and Produced by Theo Green

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FilippoVelli
Sep 16, 2021

Reboots & Remakes

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October 22, 2021 (United States)
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Wadi Rum, Jordan (Arrakis desert)
Warner Bros.
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$165,000,000 (estimated)
$108,897,830
$41,011,174
Oct 24, 2021
$407,573,628

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Runtime 2 hours 35 minutes
Dolby Surround 7.1
Dolby Atmos
Dolby Digital
IMAX 6-Track

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Dune: Part Two review – second half of hallucinatory sci-fi epic is staggering spectacle

Denis Villeneuve’s monumental adaptation expands its extraordinary world of shimmering strangeness. It’s impossible to imagine anyone doing it better

T he second part of Denis Villeneuve’s monumental Dune adaptation lands with a sternum-juddering crash; it’s another shroom of a film, an epic sci-fi hallucination whose images speak of fascism and imperialism, of guerrilla resistance and romance. Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel – working with co-writer Jon Spaihts – draws on David Lean, George Lucas and Ridley Scott’s Gladiator in the (perhaps inevitable) mega-stadium combat scene with the tiny billions of CGI crowds in the bleachers. But he really has made it all his own: secular political cruelty meets Indigenous people’s struggle in those vast mysterious planetscapes. The sound design throbs and drones in this film’s bloodstream, lending a queasy frisson to its extraordinary visual spectacle and the recurrent horror-fetish BDSM chic which appears to govern so much intergalactic-wrongdoer style.

My only reservation is that some of the momentum that the first part had built up has been lost since that movie was released more than two years ago. Those outside the existing Dune fanbase could feel that the ending does not deliver the resounding closure to which we all might, maybe naively, consider ourselves entitled to at the end of 330 minutes total screen time. And the final eventful moments of the film feel a bit rushed, as if Shakespeare had decided to shrink Henry VI Part III into a zappy coda to go at the end of Part II.

None of that damages the film’s flair and staggering display. We begin with another extraordinary and surreal desert-battle scene with the invented technological detail that is so commanding and distinctly scary, as if we are witnessing a posthuman evolutionary development. The signature design touches are presented with absolute confidence; in any other film, those black nasal tubes would look odd, especially when the two leads are expected to kiss while wearing them. Here you accept it.

We are on the planet Arrakis, with its hugely lucrative mineral resource of Spice, under the hideously corrupt Harkonnen rule, having brought off a duplicitous coup against the Atreides family, to whom the emperor had assigned administration rights. The Harkonnens are the gruesome Baron (Stellan Skarsgård) and his creepy nephews Beast Rabban (Dave Bautista) and the even creepier Feyd-Rautha, played by Austin Butler. The charismatic Paul (Timothée Chalamet) is still gallantly fighting with the Fremen insurgency, in love with Chani (Zendaya) and considered by warrior Stilgar (Javier Bardem) to be their messiah. But Paul’s mother Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), part of the occult Bene Gesserit sisterhood, is with him also, taking her own place in the Fremen power structure. A great reckoning between the Fremen and the Harkonnen is approaching, and between Paul and the Emperor and his daughter Princess Irulan; these latter are slightly perfunctory roles for Christopher Walken and Florence Pugh.

On classically feline and insinuating form … Léa Seydoux as Lady Margot Fenring in Dune: Part Two.

It’s a panorama of shimmering strangeness, now expanded to include a bigger cast, with Léa Seydoux on classically feline and insinuating form as the Bene Gesserit initiate Lady Margot Fenring and a tiny, almost subliminal cameo for Anya Taylor-Joy . As before, the second Dune film is superb at showing us an entire created world, a distinct and now unmistakable universe, which will probably be much imitated: a triumph for cinematographer Greig Fraser and production designer Patrice Vermette. Hans Zimmer’s score provides exactly the right tone, at once plangent and grandiose.

Villeneuve shows such ambition and boldness here, and a real film-making language. But I can’t help feeling now, at the very end, that though it’s impossible to imagine anyone doing Dune better – or in any other way – somehow he hasn’t totally got his arms around the actual story in the one giant, self-contained movie in the way he got them around his amazing Blade Runner 2049 . There’s no doubt that Chalamet carries a romantic action lead with great style, even though there is so much going on, with so many other characters, that his heroism and romance with Chani is decentred. But this is a real epic and it is exhilarating to find a film-maker thinking as big as this.

Science fiction and fantasy films
Denis Villeneuve
Film adaptations
Timothée Chalamet

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‘Dune: Part Two’ Review: Bigger, Wormier and Way Far Out

Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya make an appealing pair in Denis Villeneuve’s follow-up film, and the actors fit together with tangible ease.

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In a sci-fi-looking scene set in the desert, Zendaya holds a gloved hand to Timothée Chalamet’s cheek.

By Manohla Dargis

Having gone big in “Dune,” his 2021 adaptation of Frank Herbert’s futuristic opus, the director Denis Villeneuve has gone bigger and more far out in the follow up. Set in the aftermath of the first movie, the sequel resumes the story boldly, delivering visions both phantasmagoric and familiar. Like Timothée Chalamet’s dashingly coifed hero — who steers monstrous sandworms over the desert like a charioteer — Villeneuve puts on a great show. The art of cinematic spectacle is alive and rocking in “Dune: Part Two,” and it’s a blast.

It’s a surprisingly nimble moonshot, even with all its gloom and doom and brutality. Big-screen enterprises, particularly those adapted from books with a huge, fiercely loyal readership, often have a ponderousness built in to every image. In some, you can feel the enormous effort it takes as filmmakers try to turn reams of pages into moving images that have commensurate life, artistry and pop on the screen. Adaptations can be especially deadly when moviemakers are too precious with the source material; they’re torpedoed by fealty.

“Dune” made it clear that Villeneuve isn’t that kind of textualist. As he did in the original , he has again taken plentiful liberties with Herbert’s behemoth (one hardcover edition runs 528 pages) to make “Part Two,” which he wrote with the returning Jon Spaihts. Characters, subplots and volumes of dialogue (interior and otherwise) have again been reduced or excised altogether. (I was sorry that the great character actor Stephen McKinley Henderson, who played an eerie adviser in the first movie, didn’t make the cut here.) The story — its trajectory, protagonist and concerns — remains recognizable yet also different.

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“Dune” turns on Paul Atreides (Chalamet), an aristocrat who becomes a guerrilla and crusader, and whose destiny weighs as heavily on him as any crown. In adapting “Dune,” Villeneuve effectively cleaved Herbert’s novel in half. (Herbert wrote six “Dune” books, a series that has morphed into a multimedia franchise since his death in 1986.) The first part makes introductions and sketches in Paul’s back story as the beloved only son of a duke, Leto (Oscar Isaac), and his concubine, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson). When it opens, the royals, on orders from the universe’s emperor, are preparing to vacate their home planet, a watery world called Caladan, to the parched planet of Arrakis, a.k.a. Dune.

The move to Arrakis goes catastrophically wrong; many members of House Atreides are murdered by their enemies, most notably the pallid, villainous House Harkonnen, and Paul’s father dies. Paul and the Lady Jessica escape into the desert where — after much side-eyeing and muttering along with one of those climactic mano-a-mano duels that turn fictional boys into men — they find uneasy allies in a group of Fremen, the planet’s Indigenous population. A tribal people who have adapted to Dune’s harsh conditions with clever survival tactics, like form-fitting suits that conserve bodily moisture, the Fremen are scattered across the planet under the emperor’s rule. Some fight to be free; many pray for a messiah.

“Part Two” opens with Paul and his mother hunkered down in the desert, hiding behind a sandy crest amid a company of Fremen warriors. Among these are Chani (Zendaya) and Stilgar (Javier Bardem), who personify the Fremen’s divergent ideas about liberation. Stilgar is a man of faith who, not long into the sequel, starts to believe that Paul is the Fremen messiah. This requires Bardem to keep repeating variations of the same true-believer line (basically, Paul is the one!), which he does with expressive, at times humorous animation. Chani, who in turn believes that a Fremen must lead them to freedom, initially views Paul with enough knitted-brow skepticism to give their inevitable romance a little frisson.

Chalamet and Zendaya make an appealing duo, and the two performers fit together with tangible ease as their characters grow close. Both actors are fun to look at, and every bit as watchable and glamorous as old-fashioned Hollywood stars (I kept wondering what product he uses to tame his curls), which is amusing but makes sense for their outsize roles. Chalamet and Zendaya tend to overwork their glowers and puppy eyes in their less chatty scenes (the desert quiet can make loose talk deadly), but together they humanize the story, giving it the necessary personal stakes and a warmth that helps balance the chilling violence.

Herbert’s novel is a great juicy slab of a book, a meticulously detailed and enjoyably engrossing fantasy about belief and doubt, survival and struggle, idealism and nihilism. Herbert was a worldbuilder par excellence and he drew from an astonishment of references to create a fantastical realm. The results are unusual enough to inspire curiosity and, at times, a sense of wonder, even as the story retains a connection to the reality outside its pages. It’s a dense palimpsest, with influences ranging from Greek mythology to Shakespearean tragedy and Jungian psychology. Time and again, especially in its representations of a hostile environment and religious fanaticism, it can also seem like a warning to the present day.

Villeneuve’s approach in adapting the novel is, effectively, one of judicious distillation. Like the first movie, “Part Two” advances the plot fluently (it’s easy to follow), through both dialogue and action sequences that are true to the spirit of the book, its overarching narrative arc, vibe and weirdness. The dialogue sounds natural, even when characters are throwing around names like the Bene Gesserit, the misterioso religious sorority that assumes greater prominence in “Part Two.” As crucially, the action sequences don’t stop the movie dead or make the rest of it seem irrelevant. Mainstream adventure films often toggle between expository and action sequences with wearyingly predictability; here, everything flows.

“Dune” is finally a war story, like many contemporary screen spectacles, and it isn’t long into “Part Two” before bodies begin to fall. In the swiftly paced opener, Harkonnen soldiers, led by a bald shouter called the Beast Rabban (Dave Bautista), descend to the desert floor from their flying machines. Wearing bulky uniforms that make them seem as lumbering as old-school deep-sea divers, the soldiers seem too ungainly to take on the Fremen, agile fighters with parkour moves and billy goat balance. Villeneuve is good at surprises, though, and he knows how to marshal contrasts — light and dark, immensity and puniness — to create interest and tension. Soon enough the Harkonnen are rapidly jetpacking through the air, and it’s on.

“Part Two” moves with comparable dexterity despite all the weightiness, the byzantine complexities and knotty conspiracies shared among different factions. The sequel brings back a number of familiar faces, including Josh Brolin as the Atreides loyalist Gurney Halleck and Stellan Skarsgard as the monstrous Baron. The leader of House Harkonnen, the Baron spends much of his time killing his minions or marinating his often-bared, massively spherical body in a tub of what looks like crude oil. Rabban, his inept nephew, is soon overshadowed by the most striking addition to the “Dune” detachment, another nephew, Feyd-Rautha, a malignancy played by an unrecognizable, utterly creepy Austin Butler.

As spectrally white and seemingly hairless as his uncle, Feyd-Rautha looks like a bulked-up worm. He’s a warrior and every bit as wicked as his uncle. Yet he isn’t the usual sexed-up antihero despite the curves of Butler’s muscles and his sensual pout, and the character remains a disturbing narrative question mark. Feyd-Rautha becomes Paul’s challenger, but he also serves as a counterpart to the huge sandworms that travel beneath Arrakis’s surface and produce the planet’s invaluable natural resource, known as melange or spice. As crucial as petroleum, as addictive as smack, spice sparkles like pixie dust, alters minds, turns eyes vivid blue but mostly it keeps this universe running — and violently churning.

Our world is never far from that of “Dune,” with its cruelty, greed, fearmongering, sectarian divisions, battle cries and power plays. (The sandworms by contrast are wonderfully otherworldly; they’re fantastic creatures with long meaty bodies and bristly, baleenlike maws, which make for a fearsome if playful confusion of mammalian, slightly gendered images.) Part of the story’s potency is its familiarity. Like Herbert, Villeneuve has tapped assorted influences to create the world of “Dune,” drawing from myths, westerns, war films and so on. There’s even a nod to David Lynch , who directed the 1984 “Dune,” though the obvious touchstone is David Lean’s 1962 epic “Lawrence of Arabia,” with its own blue-eyed hero.

Lean’s movie is based on the life of T.E. Lawrence, who played a role in the Arab Revolt of 1916, in which British-backed Arab forces expelled the Ottomans from parts of the Middle East. That film, with its white savior and the anguished colonialist history it evokes, hangs over “Dune” provocatively. For all the challenges that Villeneuve has faced in adapting the novel to the screen none have seemed more insurmountable than remaining faithful to the complexity of Herbert’s Paul Atreides, whose power is less than triumphant. Disturbed by his mother’s ambitions and haunted by apocalyptic visions, Paul remains as unsure of his destiny as you are. Don’t expect many answers by the end of “Part Two” — as I said, Herbert wrote five additional books — though, like me, you may want to put your money on Zendaya.

Dune: Part Two Rated PG-13 for warfare and worms. Running time: 2 hours 46 minutes. In theaters.

Manohla Dargis is the chief film critic of The Times, which she joined in 2004. She has an M.A. in cinema studies from New York University, and her work has been anthologized in several books. More about Manohla Dargis

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'Dune': A sweeping, spectacular spice-opera — half of one, anyway

Glen Weldon

Paul (Timothee Chalamet) and the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother (Charlotte Rampling) regard each other warily in DUNE. Warner Bros. hide caption

Paul (Timothee Chalamet) and the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother (Charlotte Rampling) regard each other warily in DUNE.

Most of us who've read Frank Herbert's 1965 novel Dune have experienced it in the form of mass-market paperbacks so thick and dense they could double as wheel chocks for a Cessna. If you've made it all the way through even once, the spine on your personal copy will have been battered into submission such that it takes on the appearance of the Bonneville salt flats — rough, faded, riddled with spidery cracks.

This has less to do with any degree of ardor you may or may not have brought to your experience of reading the book, and everything to do with the sheer number of times you found yourself shuttling back and forth and back again between your current place in the proceedings and Herbert's extensive glossary in the back.

The world of Herbert's novel is made up of many worlds, many ruling galactic Houses, many competing infrastructural interests working to seize power through means both overt and skullduggerous, to say nothing of the thousands of years of interstellar intrigue and bloodshed that take place before the book opens.

And , of course , all of those planets, Houses, institutions and historical events have names — names that Herbert drops often and with a kind of blithe ferocity. Those drops soon become a firehose-torrent of exotic names, italicized terms and inscrutable acronyms. (" CHOAM!!?? " I distinctly recall 10-year-old me thinking to himself in dismay, before resigning himself to yet another trip to the back of the book. "I was really making headway there for second, then boom: goddamn CHOAM .")

CHOAM stands for Combine Honnette Ober Advancer Mercantiles, by the way. I sense your relieved comprehension; you may now go about your day.

That density of reference and cross-reference is, of course, a contributing factor to the novel's enduring appeal — the sense that Herbert did the hard work to fully imagine both his characters and the forces that shape them, and place them into the deeply stratified society of the worlds he depicts. It's also a major reason why efforts to adapt the novel, and its sequels, have confounded directors from Alejandro Jodorowsky (whose aborted attempt is the subject of the excellent, if unimaginatively named, documentary Jodorowsky's Dune ), to David Lynch ( who actually made a deeply idiosyncratic and profoundly muddled film version in 1984 ), to John Harrison's straightforward yet undercooked 2000 Sci-Fi Channel miniseries.

Spice World (2021)

Any successful adaptation of Dune must strike a fine balance, nodding toward Herbert's densely interwoven galactic network of competing and overlapping interests without letting all those voices subsume the surprisingly clear, even archetypal, reluctant-hero narrative at the work's center.

Any adaption attempted today must also deal with something no previous version has had to address as directly: our growing, long-overdue contemporary cultural skepticism towards Chosen One narratives, particularly those of the White Savior variety.

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Doomed 'dune' was generations ahead of its time.

Make no mistake: Dune is a Chosen One narrative writ galactic — a White Savior story on an epic, sweeping scale. Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet, who spends much of the first hour or so of the film brooding Byronically in long frock coats on windswept promontories overlooking the sea) has been genetically engineered to be a leader known as the kwisatz haderach. (Yep, an italicized term already, in the first sentence of the premise description; if that concerns you at all, this movie will not be your jam.)

His father, Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac), and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), have been tasked with taking over the desert planet Arrakis (aka Dune, keep up), the sole source of a mind-altering spice that makes interstellar travel possible. They are taking the planet over from the vile Harkonnens, a House led by an evil Baron named, it may not surprise you to learn, Vladimir (Stellan Skarsgard, getting a second use out of his Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again fat suit). During its reign over Arrakis, the House has cruelly dealt with the planet's indigenous population, known as the Fremen — humans perfectly adapted to harsh desert life.

Paul keeps having gauzy, prophetic dreams featuring a Fremen named Chani (Zendaya) that director Denis Villeneuve shoots as if they're the world's most arid Dior commercials. Over the course of the film, young Paul starts to come into his power, reluctantly realizing that he may in fact be the subject of not one but two prophecies — the powerful kwisatch haderach forseen by the shadowy space-witches known as the Bene Gesserit, and the religious savior called the Mahdi by the Fremen.

It will be useful, at this point, to divide this review into two parts, aimed at two different audiences. First up:

If you know nothing about Dune — you haven't read the books or seen any previous adaptation:

Hello! You, who don't know a Sardaukar from a Shai-hulud , who couldn't pick the Shadout Mapes out of lineup of Shadouts, are in for a treat. Villeneuve has made a grand, epic film that features the kind of action and spectacle you're likely expecting — but he hasn't let the sheer staggering scope of the endeavor sway him from his penchant for moody introspection. As he did in Arrival and Blade Runner 2049 , he works in the genre of science fiction but lets his camera linger on his characters' expressions and body language, grounding viewers in the realm of human emotion even as massive spaceships explode and giant sandworms roar behind them.

His screenplay distills Herbert's hilariously dense network of galactic institutions down to the major players. You'll miss some nuance, maybe, but that's why God made wikis for you to consult on the way home from the theater. The film also, importantly, contemporizes the book's stilted dialogue, and in so doing willingly trades any sense of mythic portentousness for something looser and more alive.

You'll catch visual shout-outs to Apocalypse Now and Lawrence of Arabia , among many other films, and Greig Fraser's cinematography will dazzle you with its sense of immensity and emptiness. You'll think the film drags a bit in the middle, and that it ends on a weirdly anti-climactic note, and you'll wonder why the promotional material featured Zendaya so much, when she gets only a handful of lines at the very end. You'll be very right on all scores — this is only the first half of the story, after all.

Okay, that's done. Now for the rest of you.

PG-13: Risky Reads

Reading 'dune,' my junior-high survival guide, if you've done dune — you've read a book or six, and/or know and love david lynch's hot mess of a film from 1984:.

First and most important thing you should know: The film ends soon after Paul first meets up with Sietch Tabr.

Knowing that bit of information will save you a lot of concern and confusion, trust me. If you know the story in full, you'll watch each scene unfold, idly (and later on, not-so-idly) wondering how far this massive, stately ocean-liner of a film can possibly get before ending. That's because Villeneuve's pacing is never anything less than even and deliberate — you'll feel each story beat landing, one after the other, in unhurried succession.

You will likely admire the efficiency with which the screenplay trots out this or that bit of Herbertian lore. And while Villeneuve's judiciously steady, even-keel approach may make you may miss Lynch's idiosyncratic, subconscious, quasi-Jungian riffing on the source text ("The toooooooth!") , you certainly won't miss the 1984 film's relentless, inescapable voiceover.

Knowing in advance exactly where Villeneuve chooses to end Dune: Part One will help you relax into the storytelling and the spectacle of the thing. Yes, you'll maybe wince at those moments when the score busts out a call-to-prayer as Paul performs some quasi-mystical feat — a choice that seems at once unearned and on the nose. And even a filmmaker as drawn to emotional nuance as Villeneuve could do much to turn the book's villain — the cartoonishly eeeeevil Baron Harkonnen — into anything but the one-note baddie he is.

But in moments big (a sandworm attack) and small (a quiet conversation between Isaac's melancholy Duke and Chalamet's sullen Paul), Dune plays itself out with an assured confidence that encourages you to settle in for the long (2 hours and 35 minutes!) haul — and eagerly (!) await Part Two.

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Common sense media reviewers.

Lots of fighting in vivid but long sci-fi adaptation.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

This film covers the first half of the source nove

Paul comes off as a fairly traditional hero but al

Male-driven narrative, but women in supporting rol

Sci-fi action-style guns and shooting. People get

Kissing. A man appears to be naked; nothing explic

Infrequent use of "hell," "s--t," "ass," "damn." "

"Spice" is described as a drug that has good prope

Positive Messages

This film covers the first half of the source novel, so many of the book's bigger themes -- including religion and environmentalism -- aren't fully explored. One theme that does arise involves control of Arrakis: The villains (House Harkonnen) oppress the Fremen, while the heroes (House Atreides) try to work alongside them.

Positive Role Models

Paul comes off as a fairly traditional hero but also has started down a dark path by beginning to use a prophecy to his own advantage, setting himself up as a kind of messiah. To prove himself worthy of the Fremen, he kills a man; there are no consequences. His father, Duke Leto, is a far better role model; he's shown to be kind, benevolent, wise, understanding, although his trust and loyalty eventually ( spoiler alert ) get him killed.

Diverse Representations

Male-driven narrative, but women in supporting roles are quite powerful and admirable. This version improves on previous iterations' all-White casts by including diverse actors (Latino, Hawaiian/Polynesian, Asian, Black), but main characters are still all White, and ( spoiler alert ) virtually all characters of color die. Has raised concerns in the way it leans on Middle Eastern culture for world-building but doesn't include any MENA actors. No body/size diversity, unless you count the Baron, whose grotesqueness is unfortunately tied to his larger size and eating.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Sci-fi action-style guns and shooting. People get shot; deaths/dead bodies. Fighting with swords, blades, other weapons. Battles. Explosions. Character stabbed. Character impaled with dart. Neck-slicing. Beheadings. Characters swallowed by sandworm. Not much blood, but scenes include a bloody hand, bloody knife, blood spot. Poison gas. Crash-landing. Rape is mentioned in dialogue.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Kissing. A man appears to be naked; nothing explicit shown. Shirtless man.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Infrequent use of "hell," "s--t," "ass," "damn." "My God" used as an exclamation.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

"Spice" is described as a drug that has good properties but is also addictive; the only side effect is that it turns users' eyes luminous blue. It's not really depicted as a substance that can be abused. It's more just "the thing" that both the heroes and villains want to get their hands on.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Dune is based on Frank Herbert's epic 1965 novel (previously adapted for the big screen in 1984 and for TV in 2000). It covers the first half of the book and stars Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya . Sci-fi action violence includes lots of fighting, both on the battlefield and one on one, with guns, knives, and other weapons. There are also beheadings and explosions, and characters are stabbed and/or cut open, poisoned, and eaten by worms. A little bit of blood is shown, and characters die. There's kissing and partial male nudity (no sensitive body parts shown). Infrequent language includes "s--t," "ass," and "hell." The story is about a drug known as "spice," but it's more of a thing for everyone to fight over than a real drug. While this (long) movie isn't without its flaws, director Denis Villeneuve gives it a languid smoothness that makes for an enthralling tale (which continues in Dune: Part Two ). To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Kids say (99)

Based on 24 parent reviews

Jaw-dropping prologue has intense violence

A fan and a father, what's the story.

In DUNE, the desert planet Arrakis is the source of a valuable drug, called "spice," that allows users to travel vast distances. Spice mining and distribution on Arrakis are controlled by the evil Baron Harkonnen ( Stellan Skarsgard ), whose armies oppress the planet's Fremen people. Under orders from the emperor, Duke Leto Atreides ( Oscar Isaac ) takes over the stewardship of Arrakis and moves there with his wife, Lady Jessica ( Rebecca Ferguson ), and son, Paul ( Timothée Chalamet ). Lady Jessica has been teaching Paul in the ways of the Bene Gesserit, and, once on Arrakis, some of the Fremen begin to suspect that Paul may be a prophesied "chosen one." But after a betrayal, Lady Jessica and Paul find themselves in the desert, hunted by giant sandworms, with the mysterious Fremen their only chance of survival.

Is It Any Good?

In this first of two Dune movies, director Denis Villeneuve smooths out the most cumbersome parts of Frank Herbert's original tale, providing enough spectacle to overcome the dull bits. With echoes of his earlier films Arrival and Blade Runner 2049 , Villeneuve brings a languid moodiness to the storytelling here, slowing things down and allowing viewers time to take in the vast sets (built broad and low to fit the widescreen frame) and devices -- like the amazing, if impractical, ships modeled after dragonflies -- and to keep track of the story's innumerable characters. This rhythm builds to the tale's memorable, invigorating highlights -- such as Paul dodging a life-threatening hunter-seeker or enduring the painful gom jabbar test, or the first appearance of the massive sandworms -- and makes them feel extra vivid.

The movie even manages to soften the old, tired "chosen one" device, as well as the simplistic plot strands that are covered up by heaps of sci-fi names (how do you pronounce "Thufir Hawat" anyway?), places, and devices, making things flow more organically. It's even possible to remember that the original novel, published in 1965, actually inspired much that came after it, including Star Wars and The Matrix . Villeneuve can't quite downplay the source material's choking seriousness, but there are lighter moments. Skarsgard's Baron is a highlight; he's so grotesque that you can't look away. And then there's a swaggering Jason Momoa as swordmaster Duncan, who seems to be the only one having any fun. As with Blade Runner 2049 , Dune goes on too long, with too many scenes of fighting, and this version lacks the quirky personality of the 1984 David Lynch take , but it's far more rousing.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Dune 's violence . How did it make you feel? Was it exciting? Shocking? What did the movie show or not show to achieve this effect? Why is that important?

Why is "spice" considered a drug ? Is meant to represent drugs as we know them? Is it glamorized? Are there consequences for using it?

What are some of the movie's themes? How can sci-fi be used to explore real-life issues like colonialism and representation? How are the Fremen represented in the film?

How does this movie compare to the novel, the previous movie, and/or the TV movie? How is it different from those versions? How is it the same?

Is Paul a role model ? What makes him seem heroic? What behaviors suggest otherwise?

Movie Details

In theaters : October 22, 2021
On DVD or streaming : January 11, 2022
Cast : Timothée Chalamet , Zendaya , Rebecca Ferguson , Oscar Isaac
Director : Denis Villeneuve
Inclusion Information : Female actors, Black actors, Multiracial actors, Latino actors
Studio : Warner Bros.
Genre : Science Fiction
Topics : Book Characters , Space and Aliens
Run time : 155 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : sequences of strong violence, some disturbing images and suggestive material
Awards : Academy Award , Golden Globe
Last updated : March 7, 2024

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Movie Reviews, Rankings, Film News and More

Dune Part One Review: A Sci-Fi Epic From Denis Villeneuve That Soars Beyond Expectations

Dune is directed by denis villeneuve and stars timothée chalamet, rebecca ferguson, oscar isaac, and zendaya.

Review: Denis Villeneuve’s Dune is an ambitious and visually stunning sci-fi epic that successfully brings Frank Herbert’s classic novel to the big screen. With a star-studded cast led by Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, and Zendaya, this film is a must-see for fans of the genre and those looking for a thrilling cinematic experience.

Dune review with Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, Javier Bardem and Timothee Chalamet.

Directed by Denis Villeneuve , Dune tells the story of Paul Atreides ( Timothée Chalamet ), a young nobleman who must travel to the desert planet of Arrakis to oversee the production of a valuable resource called “spice.” Along the way, he becomes embroiled in a conflict between rival factions vying for control of the planet, leading to a thrilling and epic adventure.

The film’s world-building is impeccable, with every detail carefully crafted to bring the universe of Dune to life. The desert landscapes of Arrakis are breathtakingly beautiful, and the production design is top-notch, with the intricate costumes and sets immersing viewers in this fantastical world.

Denis Villeneuve’s direction is masterful, as he skillfully balances action, drama, and spectacle to create a truly cinematic experience. The action sequences are thrilling and well-choreographed, while the quieter moments allow the characters and their relationships to shine.

As an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic novel, Dune is faithful to the source material while also making some necessary changes to bring the story to the big screen. The film’s screenplay, written by Villeneuve, Jon Spaihts, and Eric Roth, captures the complex themes and ideas of the novel while also streamlining the narrative for a wider audience.

The film’s ensemble cast is excellent, with Timothée Chalamet delivering a standout performance as Paul Atreides. Chalamet brings depth and nuance to the character, making him both a relatable protagonist and a compelling hero. Rebecca Ferguson is also outstanding as Paul’s mother, Lady Jessica, bringing strength and vulnerability to the role.

Oscar Isaac is perfectly cast as Duke Leto Atreides, Paul’s father, and he delivers a powerful performance that anchors the film’s emotional core. Zendaya is also impressive in her limited screen time as Chani, a mysterious and alluring character who becomes important to Paul’s journey.

As a science-fiction epic, Dune ranks among the best of the genre, with its sweeping scope and grand vision. The film is an epic in every sense of the word, with a sense of scale and grandeur that is truly awe-inspiring. It’s a film that demands to be seen on the big screen, where its stunning visuals and breathtaking set-pieces can be fully appreciated.

Reviews for Films like Dune (2021)

With its impressive visuals, stunning performances, and gripping story, Dune is undoubtedly one of the best films of 2021. It’s a film that will appeal to both sci-fi fans and general audiences, with its universal themes of family, power, and destiny resonating with viewers of all ages.

As an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel, Dune is a faithful and thoughtful interpretation of the source material. The film captures the essence of Herbert’s work, while also making some necessary changes to create a cohesive cinematic experience. Fans of the novel will appreciate the film’s attention to detail and respect for the source material.

With all of its impressive qualities, it’s no surprise that Dune has been a box office success, grossing over $400 million worldwide. Its critical and commercial success bodes well for the future of the Dune franchise , with a sequel already in the works.

Dune is a cinematic masterpiece that delivers on all fronts. It’s a visually stunning, epic sci-fi adventure that boasts excellent performances and a gripping story. It’s a faithful adaptation of the source material that also makes necessary changes to bring the story to a wider audience. With its impressive box office performance and critical acclaim, Dune is a must-see film that will undoubtedly go down as one of the best sci-fi epics of the last few decades. Don’t miss it!

Genre: Adventure , Sci-Fi

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Dune Cast and Credits

Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides

Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica Atreides

Oscar Isaac as Duke Leto Atreides

Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck

Stellan Skarsgård as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen

Dave Bautista as Beast Rabban Harkonnen

Sharon Duncan-Brewster as Dr. Liet Kynes

Stephen McKinley as Thufir Hawat

Zendaya as Chani

Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho

Javier Bardem as Stilgar

David Dastmalchian as Piter de Vries

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Writers: Eric Roth , Denis Villeneuve , Jon Spaihts , Frank Herbert

Cinematography: Greig Fraser

Editor: Joe Walker

Composer: Hans Zimmer

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DVD & Streaming

Dune: Part One

Action/Adventure , Drama , Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Content Caution

In Theaters

October 22, 2021
Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides; Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica Atreides; Oscar Isaac as Duke Leto Atreides; Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho; Stellan Skarsgård as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen as Stephen McKinley Henderson as Thufir Hawat; Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck; Javier Bardem as Stilgar; Sharon Duncan-Brewster as Dr. Liet Kynes; Chen Chang as Dr. Wellington Yueh; Dave Bautista as Beast Rabban Harkonnen; David Dastmalchian as Piter de Vries; Zendaya s Chani; Charlotte Rampling as Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam; Babs Olusanmokun as Jamis; Golda Rosheuvel as Shadout Mapes

Home Release Date

December 3, 2021
Denis Villeneuve

Distributor

Warner Bros.

Movie Review

Duke Leto Atreides knows he’s walking into a trap.

But he has little choice.

The galaxy’s Emperor has instructed the Duke’s noble House Atreides to assume stewardship of the most important planet in the empire: Arrakis. Dune , the Desert Planet, as it’s known.

The sands of Arrakis blow hot and barren across its vast wasteland. But the sand also mingles with the universe’s most precious commodity: spice. The spice of Dune is not only a powerful hallucinogenic; it also enables Spacing Guild Navigators to bend time and space, making interstellar travel possible. Without the spice, there is no space travel—no trade, no empire, no anything.

Nothing matters more than spice.

Receiving Arrakis would seem to be a great boon to House Atreides. But the planet’s oversight is being taken from the House Harkonnen, led by its grotesquely bloated Baron. He’s none too happy to have his monopoly given to another House—even if that supposed gift is part of a bigger plan on the part of the emperor to wipe out the increasingly formidable House Atreides.

Indeed, the myriad armies of House Atreides—led by the fierce soldiers Gurney Halleck and Duncan Idaho—have barely arrived in the capital city of Arrakeen when the trap begins to snap shut. And brutally so. It seems the Duke’s lineage—represented by his son Paul, who’s barely come of age—will be wiped out.

But all is not as it seems on Dune. Beneath the shifting, sweltering sands, harbored in island-like rock outcroppings in the deep desert, an indigenous people known as the Fremen await the coming of a messiah. It’s been foretold that he will lead them into glorious battle against their outworld oppressors, securing their freedom.

Whispers among the people even suggest that young Paul Atreides could be that long-awaited savior and deliverer.

If, that is, the heat, the Harkonnens and the sandworms don’t kill him first.

Positive Elements

Duke Leto is a man and leader of nobility and honor. Morally speaking, House Atreides is the polar opposite of House Harkonnen. Leto knows that the emperor’s “gift” is not what it seems; he knows the Harkonnens quite likely lie in wait for him; yet he obliges his emperor and prepares to receive the stewardship of Arrakis anyway—bravely taking a place of leadership on a brutal world surrounded by equally brutal rivals.

The Duke deeply loves his son, Paul. Speaking of leadership, he tells Paul, “A great man doesn’t seek to lead. He’s called to it. And he answers.” Then the Duke adds, “And if your answer is no, you’ll still be the only thing I ever needed you to be: my son.”

Paul has, not surprisingly, has received the best martial tutelage from the legendary warriors Duncan Idaho and Gurney Halleck. Indeed, both of these men strive to train, equip and encourage Paul to be prepared for any threat. At one point, Gurney charges into hand-to-hand combat training with the young man after Paul says he’s not in the mood. “Mood?!” Gurney exclaims. “What’s mood got to do with it? You fight when necessity arises, no matter what the mood.” And as the Harkonnens bring the fight to the House Atreides, Gurney and Duncan both serve heroically in defense of their liege.

The Duke has a longstanding love relationship with Lady Jessica, his concubine. Indeed, the Duke regrets never having married her (which he says to Jessica at one point). Jessica’s loyalty to and love for Paul likewise is as fierce as Duke Leto’s.

The Fremen, we learn, are a mysterious, semi-nomadic desert people who live by their own code of honor. At times it’s a deadly one, as we’ll see below.

One character, Dr. Liet Kynes, is an Imperial Planetologist who also serves as the Judge of the Change—the handover of power between the Harkonnens and the Atreides. She is supposed to be steadfastly neutral, but she, too, ultimately proves a heroic character when the Harkonnens attack.

In fact, there’s no shortage of heroism here all around—from the Duke, to Paul, to Jessica, to nearly all of the major Atreides characters—as they try to resist getting caught in the trap that’s been set for them.

Spiritual Elements

Two distinct streams of spiritual belief mingle throughout the story of Dune .

Jessica is a member of a shadowy-but-influential female religious order known as the Bene Gesserit . But she’s sought to train Paul, illicitly, in the ways of her religious tradition.

The Bene Gesserit have a variety of abilities. First, they use something called the Voice, which exerts powerful mind control over those who hear it. Second, we hear whispers of these soothsayers ability to foresee the future—as well as of their limited ability and boundless determination to shape it.

The Bene Gesserit form an organized religious force that plays an important role in sustaining and affirming the Emperor’s power. But it’s equally clear that the Bene Gesserit have their own agenda at work, too. As a whole, they’re not depicted as a force for good, but a group to be feared and distrusted because of their shadowy, duplicitous ways.

We also hear a few whispered mentions of a prophesied Bene Gesserit male leader known as the Kwisatz Haderach. The chief leader of the Bene Gesserit accuses Jessica of trying to give birth to this foretold leader.

Jessica quotes a famous Bene Gesserit proverb: “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

In some respects, you could perhaps identify loose narrative parallels between the Bene Gesserit’s depiction here and the medieval Catholic Church’s intertwined (and sometimes compromised) relationship with political powers in the Middle Ages. The Bene Gesserit sect has largely been corrupted by power but is ruthlessly determined to hang on to it.

The second religious thread in the story is the Fremen’s religion. These desert-dwelling people’s faith is depicted in a more pure and holistic way. If the Bene Gesserit are corrupt, the Fremen seem to be true believers in their convictions. The Fremen’s desert garb, their speech and their patterns of religious devotion also bear superficial resemblance to Islam and Arabic desert culture. The Duke’s warrior Duncan Idaho says of the Fremen’s martial ferocity, “They fight like demons.”

The Fremen, as mentioned above, have a prophecy about a leader who come from off-world to liberate them. Paul, some of theme think, could be that longed-for spiritual liberator.

Spice is described as a hallucinogenic agent. That said, for the Fremen (whose eyes are blue due to consuming it), it takes on a more mystical capacity than simply being a recreational drug. Paul has several spice-induced visions, as well as prophetic dreams of meeting a young Fremen woman named Chani. Spice is also integral to the Spacing Guild’s ability pilot spacecraft between worlds.

The Fremen seem almost to worship Dune’s great sandworms, whom they call “Makers.” Someone says, “Blessed be the Maker and his water.” Another character exclaims elsewhere, “God in heaven.”

Sexual Content

Several women wear translucent, clingy gowns with, apparently, not much on beneath. Paul dreams of kissing Chani. The Duke and Lady Jessica are shown, fully clothed, in bed together. Paul’s shown shirtless. A man who’s been drugged is also naked and sitting in a chair. We see the entirety of his bare side, but nothing critical. One scene also depicts quite a lot of the Baron’s prodigiously bare flesh.

Violent Content

Violence—and the threat of violence—permeates the world of Arrakis.

We see some brutal hand-to-hand combat in a massive battle on the planet. The body count here is high, and more than once we see blood-slicked swords in soldiers’ hands. That battle also includes an air-to-surface bombardment of the capital city, including the use of powerful explosives to fully breach the shield wall surrounding the city’s vulnerable entrance.

The intensity of this battle is still within PG-13 territory, but it pushes further in its grimness and blood-stained weaponry than most comparably rated sci-fi, fantasy or superhero flicks. It has a grim and foreboding feel to it that makes the combat here feel much more realistic and tragic. That’s especially true when Baron Harkonnen’s barbaric henchman, Beast Rabban, beheads a line of soldiers before him. (We see the blade begin to fall, but not the actual executions.)

Paul’s mother is threatened by a group of Harkonnen soldiers who talk of raping her before she brutally kills all of them. One of Paul’s visions repeatedly pictures a young woman with blood on her hands. Paul has dreams of—and is haunted by—images of him leading a religious holy war in which his warriors kill myriad people on different planets, all in his name.

Multiple other characters are stabbed and killed, and we see their pained expressions in the process. Likewise, Paul is forced to fight an honor duel of sorts. Paul and the man battle to the death.

The older priestess also gives Paul Atreides a test involving a box into which he places his hand. If he removes his hand for any reason before she allows him to do so, she has a poisoned needle at his neck called the gom jabbar to kill him. The test is to see whether he is a “human” or an “animal.” The latter, the priestess says, will chew off his leg to escape a trap. A human won’t do that. Paul leaves his hand in the box, even though he’s certain it’s being burned up by fire.

Someone unleashes an aerosol poison that kills many people. Tiny, syringe-like drones seek to assassinate people. Enormous, toothy sandworms attack (and don’t leave anything behind). A light aircraft crashes after flying into the teeth of a duststorm. Multiple characters are executed.

Crude or Profane Language

Duncan Idaho quotes a Fremen saying: “To shower, you scrub your a– with sand.” We hear single uses each of the s-word, “d–n” and “my god.”

Drug and Alcohol Content

We hear references to spice as noted above.

Other Negative Elements

Paul repeatedly lies about prophetic dreams he’s been having. There’s a great betrayal that makes the Harkonnen’s invasion of Arrakeen possible.

Frank Herbert’s epic Dune , published in 1965, is (arguably) to sci-fi what Lord of the Rings is to fantasy. This sweeping saga encompasses a riveting tale of politics, revolution, religion, love, loyalty and interstellar civil war as one young man slowly dons the mantle of messiah that has been thrust upon him.

If that sounds like a lot to cram into one movie, it is. So be forewarned: This story only makes it through about half of Herbert’s first book in the series—and that after some 2 hours and 35 minutes of run time.

Dune has infamously resisted translation to the cinematic format. The 1984 version, directed by none other than David Lynch, has been both mocked and adored—the latter for its pure absurdity at certain points. A miniseries in 2000 paid closer attention to the source material yet largely failed to generate adulation among the Dune faithful.

And now Canadian director Denis Villeneuve (Blade Runner 2049, Arrival) has stepped up to the plate. Given the inherent density of Herbert’s seminal novel, I suspect that this spectacularly filmed movie will still appeal more to those who’ve read the book than those who haven’t. More so than his predecessors, however, Villeneuve has managed to capture the essence of the story, the tale of a young man thrown into a brutal world and called to be its unlikely savior.

(Plus, of course, sandworms. Very nicely executed here, those.)

As far as Plugged In’s perspective is concerned, this PG-13 film pushes the boundaries of that rating in its grim violence. This is a dark story, one of betrayal and death that is not much redeemed in this first installment. Blood flows, as evidenced by plenty of the slick red stuff coating combatants’ blades.

And then there’s all that spiritual stuff—and there’s a lot of it here. Though both the Bene Gesserit religion and that of the Fremen are fictional ones, it’s not hard to draw parallels between existing belief systems in our world. Here, religion serves, paradoxically, as both the sustainer of the status quo and the spark of revolution coming against it.

There’s plenty of fodder for discussion in that tension, which I suspect is exactly what Herbert intended. And Villeneuve has captured that tension effectively here. But families with younger fans of the book may want to think carefully before seeing this version of Frank Herbert’s iconic story.

Adam R. Holz

After serving as an associate editor at NavPress’ Discipleship Journal and consulting editor for Current Thoughts and Trends, Adam now oversees the editing and publishing of Plugged In’s reviews as the site’s director. He and his wife, Jennifer, have three children. In their free time, the Holzes enjoy playing games, a variety of musical instruments, swimming and … watching movies.

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Movie Review: An Anti-Hero Thrills Post-Pandemic Sci-Fi Audiences in ‘Dune: Part Two’

Dune Doesn’t Care If You Like It

Vulture is recirculating its coverage of Dune in celebration of the epic’s long-awaited release on HBO Max and theaters .

Sandworms, the signature creation of Frank Herbert’s Dune series, are colossal beings that live in the deserts of the planet Arrakis, which the worms travel through the way a shark might through water. Their dominance over the land has them alternately revered and feared by the different human populations who also live there, carving out lives in the unforgiving environs. The worms are drawn to anything out on the sand, capable of sensing vibrations from far away, and emerge from underneath their targets, the ground giving way to a gaping maw for anyone unfortunate enough to be in the area. When David Lynch directed his ill-omened 1984 adaptation of the original 1965 novel, he gave his sandworms multi-lobed mouths that opened like monstrous flowers, much like they had in John Schoenherr’s dust-jacket illustrations. It’s a dependable method for making anatomy look ominous — just have it look like a toothy vulva — but it’s not an approach Denis Villeneuve replicates in his own sumptuous and strange new take on Herbert’s source material.

Villeneuve’s sandworms, like so many details of his new movie, strive to come across as genuinely otherworldly and from a context other than our own. They have a tunnel-like quality that’s organic only in the sense that microscopic organisms that turn out to be nightmare fuel when given their close-up are still organic, ending abruptly in circular jaws that are permanently agape and ringed by a filter made up of rows of needle-like teeth. When Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), Dune ’s reluctant messiah figure, has an encounter with one after fleeing into the desert, the worm lifts its massive noggin out of the drifts right in front of him, and he stares into its unseeing countenance in a moment that’s meant to be electric with the terrifying majesty of this utterly alien life-form. But, gazing into that eyeless hole with clenching interiors glimpsed in its shadowy depths, it might also cross your mind that the reimagined worm left its old vagina dentata influences behind only to end up resembling a giant asshole.

The human imagination is not as limitless as we like to pretend, and it’s funny how often, in trying to get beyond the boundaries of the known, we just end up circling back to our own privates. That’s the challenge of science fiction, to create a real sense of distance and otherness when so much of storytelling rests on evoking the familiar. It’s a challenge that Dune takes up with an admirable and maybe doomed determination, rendering Herbert’s rival intergalactic aristocrats and space witches on an awe-inspiring, gloriously unfriendly scale. Herbert himself didn’t build his world from scratch: The squabbled-over Arrakis, the only source for a substance called spice that’s essential to interstellar travel, is at the heart of what are basically oil wars writ large. And Dune does have the contours of a space opera, with its sand monsters and ghoulish villains and fine-boned princeling destined to meet the literal woman of this dreams — Chani, a member of the indigenous Fremen population played by Zendaya, who will presumably get more to do if the sequel actually happens — and lead humanity toward a better future. But Villeneuve isn’t interested in making a swashbuckling romantic adventure that happens to have sci-fi trappings.

His 2016 film Arrival was about trying to communicate with extraterrestrials who experience existence in an entirely different way from us, and Dune is bent on depicting a far future humanity in which traces of the familiar — bagpipes played at a ceremony, an ancestor’s penchant for bull-fighting — just end up emphasizing how distant the characters’ desires and motivations can be. They aren’t entirely inscrutable: Oscar Isaac plays Paul’s father, Duke Leto Atreides, as a careworn but kind ruler who’s aware he’s being steered into a trap when asked to take over Arrakis. Leto’s trusted military advisers, Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa) and Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin), serve as surrogate fond old brothers and stern uncles to Paul, while as Paul’s mother and Leto’s concubine Lady Jessica, Rebecca Ferguson embodies the fretful tension of a woman torn between protecting her son and preparing him to face unavoidable danger. But Jessica also happens to be a loyal member of the Bene Gesserit, a matriarchal order of psychic women who manipulate politics while masterminding an unfathomable multi-century breeding program to create the Kwisatz Haderach — a messiah who may or may not be Paul.

The most daring aspect of Dune is not that it only tells half a narrative, or that it opts to immerse its audience in its richly rendered universe, assuming they can keep up without guide ropes. It’s carried pretty far on the strength of spectacle alone, with its spaceships hanging impossibly still in the air, its thrumming Hans Zimmer score, and its pallid antagonist, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård channeling Marlon Brando’s Colonel Kurtz), floating around on anti-gravity boosters like a menacing balloon. No, the most daring aspect of Dune is how much unease it creates around the idea of a chosen one, from the Leni Riefenstahl–inspired military ceremony in which Leto and Paul receive their commission to take care of Arrakis to the fact that Paul is the product of eugenics. It begins with Chani talking in voiceover about the colonization of the Fremen’s land and the oppression they’ve experienced at the hands of rapacious outsiders, and then turns to a white savior whose greatness is entirely synthetic, engineered via planted prophecies and genetic manipulation. Paul’s reluctance to fall into the role created for him isn’t the usual self-doubt, but the dread of someone who begins to believe he’s meant to initiate a holy war. Being the hero of the story has never looked so poisoned, and that alone is thrilling enough to hope Villeneuve gets to make part two of this impressively batshit venture.

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‘Dune 2’s Global Box Office Rampage Continues Despite Looming Digital Release

Dune: Part Two continues to shatter box office records globally, nearing the $700 million mark in just 45 days.
The film's success is attributed to stellar reviews, incredible IMAX performance, and a turning tide toward director-driven tent-poles.
Despite nearing digital release, Dune: Part Two remains a monumental success, surpassing its predecessor's global earnings.

Now well over a month and a half into its blockbuster theatrical run, Warner Bros. and Legendary’s Dune: Part Two continues to set new benchmarks. The epic science-fiction sequel delivered the seventh-biggest seventh weekend haul for a March release at the domestic box office, as it nears a new milestone globally. The movie clearly has more gas left in its tank and will continue to draw crowds to theaters even after it debuts on digital platforms next week .

Dune: Part Two grossed an estimated $4.3 million domestically this weekend , and added another $7.2 million from overseas territories. The film’s running domestic gross now stands at $272 million, while its overseas numbers recently passed the staggering $400 million milestone. Having played in theaters worldwide for 45 days, Dune: Part Two ’s cumulative global haul now stands at $684 million . The movie has been a resounding success for everybody involved, despite its dense themes and challenging run-time. Produced on a reported budget of $190 million , the movie’s break-even point was estimated to be around $500 million.

Directed by Denis Villeneuve , Dune: Part Two opened to stellar reviews and has been particularly successful in the IMAX format, where it has generated over $140 million worldwide. The movie received an endorsement from none other than Christopher Nolan , whose latest film, Oppenheimer , also exceeded expectations at the box office. The back-to-back success of Oppenheimer and Dune: Part Two suggests the tide is turning in favor of director-driven tent-poles , after more than a decade where studio-mandated projects ruled the roost.

The 'Dune' Universe Will Get a Third Film

Dune: Part Two is now the most successful film in not only Villeneuve’s career but also that of star Timothée Chalamet . The young star recently delivered the global smash hit Wonka , which generated $630 million worldwide. Combined, Chalamet’s last two movies have grossed over $1.3 billion globally . Dune: Part Two might struggle to hit the $300 million mark domestically, but will certainly pass the global $700 million milestone imminently . It has now generated nearly $300 million more worldwide than its predecessor, Dune , whose release was hindered by a day-and-date debut on the streaming service formerly known as HBO Max during the pandemic.

Dune: Part Two concludes Villeneuve’s two-part adaptation of Frank Herbert ’s landmark science-fiction novel — a cautionary tale about the perils of absolute power, and the insidiousness of blind faith. Villeneuve has reportedly begun work on a third film , based on the novel Dune: Messiah . Also starring Zendaya , Austin Butler , Florence Pugh , Christopher Walken , Javier Barden , Rebecca Ferguson , Josh Brolin, and others, Dune: Part Two is playing in theaters. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.

Dune: Part Two

Paul Atreides unites with Chani and the Fremen while seeking revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family.

Release Date March 1, 2024

Director Denis Villeneuve

Cast Zendaya, Stellan Skarsgrd, Timothee Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Florence Pugh, Javier Bardem

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‘Dune 2’s Global Box Office Rampage Continues Despite Looming Digital Release

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Denis Villeneuve's third Dune movie is officially in the works

The director will get to fulfill his dream of adapting Frank Herbert's sequel "Dune Messiah" as well.

Christian Holub is a writer covering comics and other geeky pop culture. He's still mad about 'Firefly' getting canceled.

Sometimes, dreams do come true. That’s as true for Paul Atreides as it is for Denis Villeneuve , who now gets to make his third Dune movie. Legendary confirmed on Thursday that they are currently developing a third movie in the sci-fi franchise based on Frank Herbert's original novels and are also in talks with Villeneuve to adapt Annie Jacobsen’s nonfiction book Nuclear War: A Scenario after that.

Villeneuve first told EW in 2021 that his goal all along was to make three Dune movies. Dune: Part Two completed the adaptation of Frank Herbert’s original 1965 sci-fi novel, but Herbert wrote five sequels before his death in 1986 (his son Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson have since added to the franchise with many additional books). The first of Herbert's sequels, 1969’s Dune Messiah , is what Villeneuve wants to adapt for his third movie in this series.

"I always envisioned three movies," Villeneuve told EW then. "It's not that I want to do a franchise, but this is Dune , and Dune is a huge story. In order to honor it, I think you would need at least three movies. That would be the dream. To follow Paul Atreides and his full arc would be nice."

Warner Bros. Pictures

After all, Paul’s story is not over. He’s only just come into his power! Dune Messiah picks up a couple of years after the end of Dune , with Paul even more powerful than before but now threatened by a shadowy conspiracy. The story introduces new intergalactic factions like the Tleilaxu, advanced biologists who have developed cloning technology and employ shape-shifting spies called Face Dancers.

It might also be our chance to see Villeneuve’s interpretation of the Spacing Guild Navigators, who use the spice melange to pilot interstellar routes for spaceships at the cost of intensive mutation. A Guild Navigator was featured prominently in David Lynch’s Dune , but they have yet to appear in the new series. One of them plays an important part in the events of Dune Messiah .

Dune Messiah also features meatier roles for characters viewers just met in Dune: Part Two , like Princess Irulan ( Florence Pugh ) and Paul’s sister Alia (Anya Taylor-Joy) . It would also continue the story of increasing disillusionment between Chani (Zendaya) and the Atreides.

“I would love to make Dune Messiah just to work with [Anya] and Florence more," Villeneuve recently told EW. "Those actresses are so inspiring. They give me chills and the will to do another one.”

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Screen Rant

Every dune book ranked worst to best.

The Dune series launched a massive sci-fi franchise. With more films and TV shows in development, here are the six books ranked from worst to best.

Dive into Frank Herbert's Dune series for a complex sci-fi experience that delves deep into themes of power and influence.
Brian Herbert has continued expanding the Dune universe, with various adaptations and spin-offs showcasing the series' lasting impact.
From Paul Atreides to Leto II, each Dune book offers a unique perspective on the intricate world-building and epic storytelling of the series.

Frank Herbert's six-book Dune series has influenced the sci-fi genre for over 50 years, and all the Dune books ranked show the variety of the sci-fi series. Set in the desert planet Arrakis, the first book follows Paul Atreides, a young man destined to be a messiah. What initially appears to be an epic adventure following a Chosen One-type character grows into something far more complex, as the series spans several thousand years. Through its extensive themes and philosophies that tackle power, corruption, hero-worship, capitalism, and ecology, the Dune novels have attracted loyal readers in the decades after the first book was released in 1965 and is considered the forebear of much of modern sci-fi.

Frank Herbert wrote six Dune books before his death in 1986. Since then, his son Brian Herbert continued to expand the universe of Dune with fellow author Kevin J. Anderson. To date, there are two film adaptations, a television adaptation of Children of Dune, an upcoming Dune prequel on HBO Max , and a vast array of novels, short stories, and graphic novels that expand on Dune's lore. Following the success of Denis Villeneuve's modern take on Dune , there is more interest in the series than ever, and many wonderful how all Frank Herbert's six Dune books, ranked from worst to best.

Dune 2: Why The Atreides And Harkonnens Don't Use Their Most Powerful Weapons

Dune messiah (1969), the second in the series.

The second novel, Dune Messiah, is the series' shortest book and was considered by many to be highly disappointing upon its release . Set 12 years after the events in Dune, Paul Atreides is now worshiped all over the known universe and continues his reign as Emperor. Paul spends most of the book in a deep depression, feeling like he has lost control of his influence over the universe because a massive, prophesied jihad led by Dune's Fremen people is violently killing billions in Paul's name. Dune Messiah demystifies Paul as the hero archetype, showing the weight of power on him and the dangers of his extreme influence.

However, while it further expands on key Dune themes and introduces the notable Ixians and Bene Tleilaxu, Dune Messiah feels overall like a benchmark in an otherwise epic series. While certainly more enjoyable than its reputation has made it to be, it's also largely considered as the worst Dune book . That said, this only makes it more interesting to envision the ending of Denis Villeneuve's Dune remake , which the director aims to be a full trilogy that culminates in the events of Dune Messiah. After all, Messiah is when Frank Herbert finally smashes the myth of the Chosen One, which some argue is the crux of the wisdom to be gleaned from the foundational sci-fi saga.

Chapterhouse: Dune (1985)

The sixth and final book in the series.

Written just a year after the series' previous installment is Chapterhouse: Dune. The planet Rakis (formerly Arrakis) has been completely destroyed, making Chapterhouse: Dune the only book in the series to take place on an entirely different planet. Being that the Dune books span millennia, readers have to connect with characters and elements introduced sometimes well into the series . However, what remains constant in the series are the Bene Gesserit order, and Duncan Idaho, who is debatably the main character in the saga for how he is resurrected throughout millennia. Indeed, despite his death in the first movie, it's likely not the last time audiences will see Jason Momoa's Duncan Idaho.

In terms of the Dune books ranked for readability, what makes Chapterhouse: Dune different is that it's told entirely from the viewpoint of the cunning Bene Gesserit order, and the power games they play throughout the galaxy are some of the most gripping prose in Frank Herbert's career. However, because most of Dune's main characters — and even the main planet — are gone, Chapterhouse: Dune feels like the series is being stretched out beyond its limits .

Despite Herbert intending for it to be the series' penultimate book before his death, Chapterhouse: Dune might have been better off as a standalone novel that expands the lore. Many consider it the worst Dune book, but it's actually a great epilogue for the entire saga.

Heretics Of Dune (1984)

The fifth in the series.

Heretics of Dune takes place 1500 years after God Emperor of Dune's heavily built-up events. Making their return are Dune's iconic sandworms, which were essentially extinct in God Emperor of Dune. Due to there being so many new characters introduced in Heretics of Dune, it can make the reader feel like having to switch gears in the series upon first getting into the book . Even the planet names change slightly due to so much time passing in Dune's universe, so it can be difficult to fully engage with.

That said, Heretics of Dune marks the center shift towards the Bene Gesserit , which appeared more as an important supporting influence in the previous Dune books and set the tone for the sixth entry. On top of that, Heretics of Dune also feels more action-packed than the other books, which many readers may find more investing. It's the kind of action that grabs readers, which isn't always the norm for this series.

Children Of Dune (1976)

The third in the series.

Children of Dune is perhaps the most divisive book of the series, but it builds Dune up to be the epic series that it is. Paul Atreides plays a nearly non-existent role as the series shifts its focus to his children, Leto II and Ghanima. Dune's melange drug in utero — combined with Paul's Kwizatz Haderach influence — made Leto and Ghanima pre-born, connecting them to millions of past lives.

More is discovered about the sandworms and the purpose they serve in creating melange, which launches much more fodder into the series, especially in the later books. If nothing else, Children of Dune is worth reading to see the beginnings of Leto's fascinating character arc, which lasts for thousands of years. Children of Dune's influence on the series grows more upon reflection and may make for a better re-reading experience.

God Emperor Of Dune (1981)

The fourth of the series.

God Emperor of Dune is by far the most philosophy-centric of the Dune books. Having its philosophy's mouthpiece be Leto II as a giant, 3,500-year-old omnipotent man-worm makes for sci-fi at its most bizarre. Duncan Idaho has higher prominence in the book, something that Jason Momoa's Duncan Idaho gives more potential to than previous adaptations. His role is to serve Leto II's vague Golden Path, which causes questions and disagreements warring with Duncan's fierce loyalty to House Atreides and Leto II's tyrannical rule.

God Emperor feels like a grand, exciting climax of the previous three books . However, keeping it from the number one spot is the heavy execution of Leto's (Herbert's) frequent pontificating. For this reason, God Emperor is also divisive, much like Children of Dune . However, more often than not, long-time readers of Dune books ranked God Emperor as among Frank Herbert's best work.

Dune (1965)

First in the series.

Dune is the ultimate foundation for so much to come in the series. Despite Dune's cliffhanger ending, it still works so well as a standalone novel about a young man moving to a new planet and having everything in his life change . Fighting over Dune's melange spice, houses around the galaxy plot ways to gain control over the most precious resource in the universe. From the famous Litany Against Fear to its extensive world-building, Dune's 617 pages are bursting with iconic lines, scenes, characters, and elements. In fact, even though Denis Villeneuve's Dune adapts only the first half of the book, the director still had to cut several scenes in order to fit everything into one feature film.

With Dune: Part 2 being an even bigger hit than the first, audiences became familiarized with the second half of the Frank Herbert novel that started it all. Revealing the events that followed the fall of House Atreides in Arrakis, Dune 2 picked up at the explosive conclusion of the first book. Dune 2 managed to top the first, so long-time readers of the books are going to be treated to a full-feature adaptation of Dune Messiah in Dune 3 , which Villeneuve initially envisions as the ending of his remake. As sci-fi continues to evolve, Herbert's legacy lives on in these adaptations. However, there's still nothing like reading the original Dune books — ranked highly or not, as each one is a treasure in its own right.

Dune: Part Two and the Dune 2-Film Collection on 4K Are Officially Up for Preorder - Out May 14

Dune: part two on 4k is even discounted.

If you've been waiting for your chance to pick up Dune: Part Two in a physical format, outside of its steelbook, we have good news. Dune: Part Two on 4K UHD and the Dune 2-Film Collection on 4K UHD are officially up for preorder with a release date of May 14. The former is currently discounted as well ( down to $29.96 from $39.98) while the latter is available for $54.99 .

Both Dune: Part Two and the 2-film collection are absolutely worth investing in, especially in a 4K format. You can check out these preorders at the links below.

Preorder Dune: Part Two and the Dune 2-Film Collection on 4K

Dune: Part Two (4K Ultra HD + Digital) [4K UHD]

Dune: Part Two Bonus Features

Per the official press release, here are the bonus features you'll be able to enjoy with the Dune: Part Two 4K release:

Chakobsa Training
Creating the Fremen World
Finding the Worlds of Dune
Buzz Around the New “Thopter”
Worm-Riding
Becoming Feyd
A New Set of Threads
Deeper into the Desert: The Sounds of the Dune

In our Dune: Part Two review , we gave the film an 8/10 stating that it, "expands the legend of Paul Atreides in spectacular fashion, and the war for Arrakis is an arresting, mystical ride at nearly every turn." If you're planning on getting the 2-film collection, it's worth noting that Dune received high praise from us as well. We stated in our Dune review that it's "beautiful to behold, a faithful adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel." And, as a bonus, if you want to add the books to your library they're currently discounted at Amazon ! There's no better time to pick them up.

In the realm of physical media preorders right now, there are quite a few more shows and films that are worth picking up, including some Disney+ shows releasing at the end of this month : season 1 of Andor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Moon Knight, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. To see what's coming soon to theaters and streaming this year, make sure to check out our breakdown of the biggest upcoming movies of 2024 .

Hannah Hoolihan is a freelance writer who works with the Guides and Commerce teams here at IGN.

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The Behrend Beacon

Dune part two: the first sequel to be better than the original: a spoiler-free review.

I will start this off by mentioning that I’ve only seen the first movie and now the second. I have not read the book; therefore, this review is not going to compare the movie to the book.

Dune Part One had a tough job. The movie had to cover the first half of a huge book and make it accessible to as many people as possible. A movie has that unique responsibility since it is by and large more widely received than books are; therefore, a lot more people who are unfamiliar with the franchise or background of the movie will be giving it a shot. Dune Part One did not do this part all that much justice, however. Dune Part One did the bare minimum; it explained just enough for this movie’s plot to make sense. However, that is not how you build a movie franchise; you need people to understand the worldbuilding, or in this case, the galaxy-building. Star Wars did this properly by starting with A New Hope. A New Hope gave you what you needed in the beginning scroll and thrilled you with an adventure. Think about it, would you care about ten-year-old Anakin Skywalker if you didn’t know he was going to become Darth Vader?

Dune Part Two did not have to deal with this, however, as it was the sequel. Everything you need to know came from the first movie. So I will focus on that from here on.

To start out with, the timing and plot progression of Dune Part Two seemed perfect to me. This is extremely important in a nearly three-hour movie. Part One had a lot of explaining and setup to do, so the plot progression was not the best; they did not make the best use of their nearly three-hour runtime. This movie was set up to be pure action and plot progression, which is exactly what you would expect given the plot; you would not expect any lulls in someone’s grand plan for war and revenge.

Part Two did more to show off other characters’ and factions’ points of view. This alone helped build out the lore and explain the setting to the viewer. We see more from the Harkonnens and even get to see things from the Emperor’s point of view. While it does not hand you every detail of everything you see, everything that does get brought up does get explained. The movie even throws in a plot twist.

While I may not be all that well-versed in the extensive Dune lore, I’m excited to see where the movies take us next. Right now, it looks like it should continue right where it leaves off, which happens to be a very exciting cliffhanger. The movie is also not just emotionless action—it follows the typical sci-fi characteristic of exploring morality in situations we cannot find ourselves in at the present. The plot is, in essence, a tug-of-war on Paul Atreides’ conscience, something that he is thankfully aware of.

All this boils down to a wonderful and engaging adventure that I eagerly await the next chapter of. I highly recommend Dune Part Two, even if you haven’t seen Part One. The movie gives you plenty to go off of and is a great enough standalone experience that you don’t technically need to see the first one. That’s just how great it is!

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'Blackout' Review: A Werewolf Horror Movie Without Any Bite

This creature feature doesn't leave much of a mark.

The Big Picture

Blackout fails to build tension in a werewolf plot, veering towards a Hallmark Channel drama.
The film underutilizes impressive werewolf makeup and offers limited monster appearances.
Blackout struggles to balance being gory and introspective, leaving viewers searching for depth.

It’s not often that werewolves get to take center stage anymore . Usually, they’re overtaken by their equally bloodthirsty but arguably more attractive cousin the vampire , who’s featured in everything from Love Bites to Interview With the Vampire . Werewolves often take a back seat in the genre’s gory action in favor of Lestat or even the Gill Man, but they get their fair share of love from horror fans too. One of those, notably, is character actor Larry Fessenden , who’s hopped behind the camera to give audiences his own take on the lycanthropic monsters in Blackout .

Blackout (2024)

In the grip of a citywide blackout, a terrifying truth emerges—a werewolf is on the loose. As night falls, a hardened police officer and an expert in mythical predators team up to hunt the creature terrorizing the blackout-stricken city, unraveling a deeper mystery behind its sudden appearance.

Fessenden’s film, which he wrote, directed, and edited, follows Alex Hurt ’s Charley, an alcoholic painter who’s looking to escape his life. He’s cut off his fiance, sold his home, and dumped his deceased father’s things off with a lawyer in an attempt to take down a corrupt businessman in his rural hometown — one who blames a series of mysterious killings on the migrant workers building his new hilltop resort. From the start, it seems like your average, run-of-the-mill small-town drama …that is, if you ignore the wolfish kill sequence that opens the film.

See, Charley has a secret: three nights a month, he transforms into a (still somehow bipedal) werewolf, attacking anyone who crosses his path. He can’t remember anything when he wakes , but has a sneaking suspicion about his lycanthropic nature. As a result, he’s on a mission to escape: not to any particular place, but life itself, commissioning a friend to make him silver bullets so he can die by suicide in maybe the most meta way possible.

'Blackout' Is a Lackluster Werewolf Movie

Unfortunately, all of the tension you’d think would be present in a man struggling with his own monstrosity is shockingly absent . Blackout is a bizarre production from someone who’s so heavily involved in the horror genre. It plays like a Hallmark Channel take on a werewolf movie, in that I know far more about the racist small town politics of Talbot Falls than I do about Charley and his inner life, minus his suicidal, lycanthropy-related tendencies.

Maybe it’s just that I come from a small town (one where I wouldn’t be overly surprised to find a werewolf lurking in the extensive woods), but the script reads like a city kid’s take on backwoods America . Sure, we probably have monsters lurking around every corner — hell, I’m sure my grandparents’ house is haunted — but the stereotyped construction most films come up with is a far cry from the truth, at least when there’s nothing else layered over top of it. Fessenden’s script is thin as wet newspaper, and long, drawn-out sequences of blue-collar workers arguing about nothing in particular bleeds the already boring film dry, much like Charley does to his victims.

It almost seems like Twilight has a better mastery of the supernatural/small town balance, a prospect that I think would give my teenage self a heart attack. The disconnect between the natural and the supernatural is so strong that it very nearly feels like two different movies mashed into one — a problem that seems to happen a distressing amount in contemporary horror, for which I have no explanation. There are a couple of familiar faces that brighten the viewing experience, notably scream queen Barbara Crampton and Motell Gyn Foster , but everyone else is a cardboard cutout of stereotypes, from the benevolent preacher to the racist bigwig businessman to the noble police officer. Charley’s affliction is very nearly treated as afterthought , if not for the string of murders tying him back to the small town’s constant infighting.

For a Monster Movie, There Aren’t Many Monsters in 'Blackout'

As a result, the film makes suprisingly little use of its rather impressive werewolf makeup , which despite only being facial prosthetics and some gnarly pointed fingernails (at least, as far as I could see in its limited glimpses) gave off what I imagine was exactly the intended effect, plus a little. It differentiates itself from the Lon Chaney and Rick Baker designs of Wolfmans past, so it’s a shame that it’s damn-near impossible to see, and isn’t given much time to shine in a movie where it should — at least in my mind — be its centerpiece. Kill sequences are reduced to a matter of seconds — the longest lasts no more than a minute, as far as I can recall — which seems like the antithesis of the point. Don’t we go to monster movies expecting to see the monsters themselves?

It’s clear that Fessenden loves werewolves, loves making scary movies, and has a good handle on letting his actors be actors , but that means that nearly every other aspect of the project suffers . He’s juggling too many balls, and to be entirely honest, Fessenden’s final project doesn’t feel too far off from a student film. With attention in so many different places, the full piece feels sparse, with not enough detail added to give it the proper, bloody oomph a werewolf like Charley deserves.

Monster films are fully capable of being gorey, goopy scarefests meant to do nothing more than make you jump out of your seat, and maybe shriek a bit if you’re as sensitive as me. They’re a cornerstone of Hollywood all the way back to the days of the studio system, and it's far from me to disparage anyone for indulging in that. But Fessenden’s film rides a strange line between a gorefest and a more introspective kind of horror, never fully committing to one or the other. It leaves you searching for any amount of meaning in the text, if only to justify the hundred minutes you spent watching it.

Then again, Blackout doesn’t seem like it falls too far afield of what most genre fans seem to enjoy , or at least expect from indie films. Horror is the only genre I can think of that firmly embraces the schlocky and the bad, and makes it a cornerstone of its existence. (I’d know, my favorite is Slumber Party Massacre 2 .) Blackout hits all of those notes, the ones that feel eerily familiar to anyone who watched Elvira or Svengoolie growing up. And having screened the film at Overlook Film Festival, I’m sure there were others who felt exactly that way. I can’t say I’d recommend it to them by any stretch of the imagination, but more power to them, I guess.

Blackout is a werewolf movie with plenty of passion behind it that still doesn't pack the punch it needs to.

The werewolf makeup is often impressive.
For the most part, most of the kills are too fleeting to leave an impact.
While it tries to explore small-two problems, the film lacks nuance.
Even as it seems built to be more introspective, Blackout is not committed enough to see this through.

Blackout is now available to stream on VOD in the U.S.

WATCH ON VOD

IMAGES

'Dune': Movie Review
Hollywood Movie Review
Dune (2021)
Dune (2021)
Dune (2021) [How to Watch Movies review]
Dune (1984)

COMMENTS

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More than a simple savior or chosen one story, "Dune: Part Two" is a robust piece of filmmaking, a reminder that this kind of broad-scale blockbuster can be done with artistry and flair. Advertisement. "Dune: Part Two" picks up so closely on the heels of the first film that the Fremen are still transporting the body of Jamis ( Babs ...
'Dune' Review: A Hero in the Making, on Shifting Sands
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'Dune: Part Two' Review: Bigger, Wormier and Way Far Out
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Review Movie Reviews. Sci-Fi epic 'Dune' is an immersive but incomplete experience ... This first Dune may not be a great movie — or even half a great movie — but Dune the planet is gorgeous ...
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His screenplay distills Herbert's hilariously dense network of galactic institutions down to the major players. You'll miss some nuance, maybe, but that's why God made wikis for you to consult on ...
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Dune is Directed by Denis Villeneuve and Stars Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, and Zendaya. Review: Denis Villeneuve's Dune is an ambitious and visually stunning sci-fi epic that successfully brings Frank Herbert's classic novel to the big screen. With a star-studded cast led by Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, and Zendaya, this film is a must-see for ...
Dune: Part One
Movie Review. Duke Leto Atreides knows he's walking into a trap. But he has little choice. The galaxy's Emperor has instructed the Duke's noble House Atreides to assume stewardship of the most important planet in the empire: Arrakis. Dune, the Desert Planet, as it's known. The sands of Arrakis blow hot and barren across its vast wasteland.
Movie Review: An Anti-Hero Thrills Post-Pandemic Sci-Fi Audiences in
After the lackluster initial 1984 adaptation by David Lynch, longtime fans of Frank Herbert's "Dune" finally have the most appropriate filmmaker to bring the epic tales to life on screen.
'Dune' Movie Review: Denis Villeneuve's Turn
Denis Villeneuve's gloriously unfriendly take on Frank Herbert's sci-fi classic, starring (among many other actors) Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya, wants to feel as alien as possible.
'Dune 2's Global Box Office Rampage Continues Despite Looming ...
Dune: Part Two continues to shatter box office records globally, nearing the $700 million mark in just 45 days.; The film's success is attributed to stellar reviews, incredible IMAX performance ...
Denis Villeneuve's third 'Dune' movie is officially happening
The director will get to fulfill his dream of adapting Frank Herbert's sequel "Dune Messiah" as well. Christian Holub is a writer covering comics and other geeky pop culture. He's still mad about ...
Every Dune Book Ranked Worst To Best
Frank Herbert's six-book Dune series has influenced the sci-fi genre for over 50 years, and all the Dune books ranked show the variety of the sci-fi series. Set in the desert planet Arrakis, the first book follows Paul Atreides, a young man destined to be a messiah. What initially appears to be an epic adventure following a Chosen One-type character grows into something far more complex, as ...
Dune: Part Two and the Dune 2-Film Collection on 4K Are ...
In our Dune: Part Two review, we gave the film an 8/10 stating that it, "expands the legend of Paul Atreides in spectacular fashion, and the war for Arrakis is an arresting, mystical ride at ...
Dune Part Two: The first sequel to be better than the original: A
Dune Part Two did not have to deal with this, however, as it was the sequel. Everything you need to know came from the first movie. So I will focus on that from here on. To start out with, the timing and plot progression of Dune Part Two seemed perfect to me. This is extremely important in a nearly three-hour movie.
'Blackout' Review
REVIEW. Blackout is a werewolf movie with plenty of passion behind it that still doesn't pack the punch it needs to. 2 10. Pros. The werewolf makeup is often impressive. Cons. For the most part ...

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‘Dune’ Review: Spectacular and Engrossing…Until It Isn’t

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Reviewed at Venice Film Festival (Out of Competition), Sept. 3, 2021. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 155 MIN.

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