I’m just going to say it: I’m not entirely sold on Timothée Chalamet yet.
Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s a fine actor. He’s even good at comedy, if his appearances on Saturday Night Live are any indication. But for me he lacks a certain dramatic gravitas. Maybe it’s because I’m at the age (old) where anyone under 30 might as well be a fetus.
But also, there’s something a little unnatural about him. Not unnatural like Glenn Powell, who has too many teeth and might be an AI experiment, but unnatural like a witch turned a sparrow into a beautiful boy. His string bean arms and little bird chest don’t exactly scream “commanding leading man” to me, but rather the arrogant young object of a doomed love affair with the wrong person.
But of course, that makes perfect sense in his casting for Dune. When the story begins, Paul Atreides is a literal teenager, a callow princeling (or dukeling, I guess) who becomes hardened in the face of loss, betrayal, battle, and that whole “you are the god who’s come to save us” thing. So maybe casting this delicate bird-boy was actually a stroke of genius.
Though I know people who are, I am not a Dunehead. I read the first book, and like virtually all my attempts at reading epic sci-fi or fantasy, I found myself too distracted by keeping who all the characters were and their various allegiances straight to really focus on the plot (which, in Dune’s case is dense and convoluted). I have a deep, inexplicable love for David Lynch’s movie, even though it’s utter nonsense with a score performed by Toto. Knowing that any attempt to figure out what’s happening in it is fruitless, it’s become comfort food to me, a movie I can put on while I’m napping or cleaning the house.
When I went to see part one of Denis Villeneuve’s take on it, I went in expecting a spectacle, and nothing more. And then, about halfway through it, it occurred to me: do…do I understand what’s happening? AND I DID. Now, I wouldn’t say I’m qualified to give a TED talk on it, but unlike Lynch’s film (which, again, I unironically love) I never felt like I was dropped in the middle of a cornfield at midnight with a torn map and a broken flashlight to read it with. Though Part 1 spends a lot of time on worldbuilding and setting up the chessboard, there’s a nice, clear, cartoon-arrows-pointing-at-it linear plot line to follow, when you’re not absolutely dazzled by the results of a director with a capital-V Vision of how this universe should look1.
Dune Part 1 is a really good movie. Dune Part 2 is a great movie.
Even though there were scenes where all I could think of was TV’s Frank and Dr. Forester shaking a beach shovel and hissing “Saaaandstoooorrrrm,” Dune Part 2 is like watching a gripping Shakespearean drama while on one of those immersive amusement park rides where they blow air and mist in your face. Mind you, that’s a compliment. The story was interesting enough that I didn’t mind breaks from the action, but also holy shit it felt like I was right there on top of Shai Hulud, even though if I really was I’d fall off and die almost immediately. I didn’t even pony up the bread for IMAX tickets (which I assume cost about $99 each at this point), and I still felt so close to the action that I might have needed to shake the sand out of my shoes later.
Despite being nearly three hours long, at no point did I ever exaggeratedly gesture at an invisible watch on my wrist. It flows nice, and like Killers of the Flower Moon, if there turns out to be a five-hour-long cut of it in existence, I’d happily sit through that, too. Even without knowing where all this will eventually lead, the blind faith Stilgar (Javier Bardem) and many of the other Fremen have that Paul is their savior is unsettling (but also unexpectedly funny, thanks to Bardem’s dry delivery). I like that Chani (Zendaya) is having absolutely none of that bullshit.
I like that the concept of absolute power corrupting absolutely is slowly playing out before our very eyes. I like how Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgard), so creepy and intimidating in Part 1, now shrinks in the presence of the Emperor (Christopher Walken). I like that Dave Bautista, with a lack of ego that’s a refreshing change of pace from, say, The Rock, is not afraid to make Rabban look like a big dumb idiot. I like that Josh Brolin is comfortably settling into taking over for Tommy Lee Jones as the premiere gruff middle-aged man who’s had enough of everyone’s shit. I like that there’s a weird unborn baby who provides commentary on things2, and it’s not nearly as silly as that sounds.
I particularly like Austin Butler, who plays Paul’s nemesis Feyd-Rautha as an albino snake man. He actually seems dangerous, as opposed to Sting from the David Lynch version, who mostly just lets his eyebrows do the talking. One of the things I enjoy about this newsletter is that it frees me from trying to eloquently describe why a movie does or doesn’t work for me. I don’t have to worry about not sounding pretentious, while also not using too many cliches. I can just vibe on things, and in Dune Part 2 I vibed on Lady Jessica’s (Rebecca Ferguson) face tattoos, the sound the ornithopters made, and Emperor Shaddam’s disco ball spaceship. Even if the plot consisted of a paragraph scribbled on a cocktail napkin, time spent in this world isn’t wasted.
It’s a miracle either this one or Part 1 even got made, particularly considering that the CEO of Warner Bros. seems intent on paring down its current creative output to episodes of 90 Day Fiancée. Part 1 did better than expected but not record-breaking numbers, so it wouldn’t have been terribly surprising if Warner Bros. left audiences hanging and canceled any further plans for sequels. But evidently, David Zaslav was off picking his nose somewhere (or unconvincingly insisting he really does love movies, honestly, guys), and Part 2 slipped past him. Embrace the miracle.
I found myself particularly taken by the miserable, rainy Salusa Secundus, home base of the fightin’ Sardaukar, and the sinister throat singing they hear while preparing for battle. I’d love to see a side story set there, maybe how the singer gets a deal to do a single for a new Pure Moods album.
I know who this character will be eventually, I gleaned that much from the Lynch movie. I just realized that anybody going into this knowing nothing about the Dune universe (Dune-iverse?) will find this aspect of it particularly baffling, and that’s hilarious.
Loved this piece. You crack me up as always. Needed that today.
I think Zaslav hadn’t bought WB yet when the first one came out and the second was greenlit.