Denis Villeneuve’s follow-up to the critically acclaimed “Dune: Part One,” “Dune: Part 2” released on Mar. 1, 2024 to immediate critical acclaim. 

The movie follows up on the territorial and agricultural dispute between three main groups: House Atreides, House Harkonnen, and the Fremen.

In the first movie, House Atreides is one of the four Great Houses of Imperium that rules the oceanic planet Caladan. Duke Leto Atreides, father of main protagonist Paul Atreides, is assigned to replace Baron Vladimir Harkonnen of the Harkonnen House as the overseer of the desert planet Arrakis by Emperor Shaddam IV, where the film takes place. Arrakis is home to a psychotropic substance called “spice,” which holds properties of increased awareness and vitality while also being key to interstellar travel.

Shaddam is secretly attempting to erase the House Atreides and bring the House Harkonnen back into power; however, Leto, although suspicious of Shaddam, desires to keep control of Arrakis and contact the natives of Arrakis, the Fremen.

For the second movie, the film picks up directly after the first and continues the story of Paul Atreides guiding the Fremen as a conspired Prophet to war against the Harkonnen over control of the planet Arrakis.

In terms of the movie, I thought it was better than the original. However, one of my main complaints is that there is no recap for the events of the first movie. This isn’t a problem, at least one with a hard solution (in which you could just rewatch the first one), but I feel like a total rewatch would bore me as I remember a lot of the visual and action aspects, leaving me feeling as if I would just need a quick recap of what exactly the plot leading up to this moment is.

Something minor I noticed was the lack of spice in concern of the plot of the movie; there is little mention of spice, the only being in the beginning and then a statement on how spice altered Paul’s psyche, but I understand the shift towards the larger problem of the Fremen being hunted.

A highlight of the movie is definitely the sandworms. The sandworms were a large part in the first movie, but play an even bigger part in the second. Paul learns how to ride a sandworm. A pretty big one too, in a tense and gripping scene. I would recommend this movie based solely on that scene. Furthermore, the sandworms are used for travel across the planet, which brings an entire new viewpoint and vantagepoint for the Fremen and a great plot device used in the end of the movie.

Another highlight, I feel, is the prominent religious themes. Paul Atreidies is treated as a prophet by half of the Fremen, and a fraud by the other half. This brings out incredible tension between characters and actions as a level of faith and fervor is introduced and used to its fullest potential. What I caught on to is that faith within religion brings divide and another level of trust that corresponds with the inequities of dominion of a higher power. This, in turn, brings out an entire new complexity for the story that deals with much more than leadership, but interpersonal relationships, such as Paul and Chani, a member of the Fremen.

Though there are a lot of great things going on screenplay-wise, I feel like the story or several scenes are cut off or cut to different points in time without any notion, which leaves a bit of confusion or voids satisfaction with an entire scene.

Something minor that was interesting was the change in color for the Harkonnen arena scene. The sun on the planet is black and white, which causes the color spectrum for the outside to be entirely in black and white, bringing a sort of terrifying, alien-like aspect to Austin Butler’s newly introduced character. Speaking of new characters, Butler absolutely steals the show with his performance. Every moment is tense with this character, as you observe his ruthlessness and moments of mania to where you don’t know how or when he will snap and just kill anyone on screen nearest to him.

Overall, “Dune: Part Two” brings a satisfying although bitter end to the saga of the war between the Harkonnen, Atreides and the Fremen. The religious aspects to the movie are great and prominent, which bring a new sense of tension and reliability between characters. I would say the movie surpasses the original in a lot of aspect, although its complexities could be hard to follow.