Perhaps the most highly anticipated film to hit our cinemas this season is DUNE: PART TWO. The sequel to director Denis Villeneuve’s 2021 visual spectacle offers audiences more Zendaya, more explosions and more sandworms. And if you thought that DUNE: PART ONE’s 155-minute runtime was hard on the bum, DUNE: PART TWO is 11 minutes longer.

If your memory of what happened in PART ONE is a bit hazy, you would be well advised to either watch it again or, at the very least, read the Wiki synopsis before heading into the cinema to watch this one. DUNE: PART TWO doesn’t waste any time rehashing past events, beginning moments after PART ONE ends. Following Paul Atreides’ (Timothée Chalamet, WONKA) killing of Jamis in a ritual duel to the death, he joins the Fremen and forms a romantic relationship with Chani (Zendaya, SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME). Together with the other Fedaykin fighters, Paul delivers a major blow to the Harkonnen’s spice mining operation on Arrakis, gaining the attention of the Emperor Shaddam IV (Christopher Walken, PULP FICTION; ANNIE HALL) and his daughter, Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh, OPPENHEIMER) in the process. He also earns the respect of Stilgar (Javier Bardem, BEING THE RICARDOS) who, after Paul passes a series of tests that include riding a giant sandworm, believes that Paul is the messiah sent to liberate them from the yoke of oppression. For his efforts and bravery, Paul is dubbed “Muad’Dib” and “Usul” by the Fremen. Chani, however, doesn’t believe that Paul is their saviour. She’s more the self-reliant type. Meanwhile, Stilgar tells Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson, REMINISCENCE) that their Reverend Mother is dying and he convinces her to take over the role, which she does after drinking the blue Water of Life. Jessica, user her new power and influence to sway the non-believers in the north into accepting the prophesy, then heads south to do the same there. With his forces on Arrakis getting their butts kicked, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård, THE PAINTED BIRD) replaces his nephew, Glossu Rabban (Dave Bautista, KNOCK AT THE CABIN), with Glossu’s psychopathic brother, Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler, ELVIS), leading to a major showdown between the Harkonnens and the Fremen.

Without a doubt, DUNE: PART TWO is just as spectacular and just as epic as PART ONE is but, at the risk of infuriating Dune fans everywhere, I’m going to say that I liked PART ONE more. The cinematography is still brilliant, and the production and sound design might just be the best we’re going to see this year, but all that still wasn’t enough to move me to prefer PART TWO. Perhaps it was uniqueness of PART ONE that impressed me, or maybe it was all the interesting characters that were introduced. PART TWO is very much a middle chapter of what will obviously be a trilogy, though no word has been announced as to when PART THREE will come to our cinemas, much less go into production. PART TWO takes the characters introduced in PART ONE and moves them around the chessboard. Chani and Stilgar, who were introduced towards the end of PART ONE, have much more prominence here, acting as conscience-whisperers to Paul as he grapples with his visions of being the cause of billions of people dying. Bardem is one of the film’s bright spots, the other being Butler, who is absolutely creepy with his bald head and lack of eyebrows. The actor’s days of being dismissed as a one-hit wonder are gone with his performance here. Wisely, Villeneuve and co-writer Jon Spaihts give Feyd-Rautha more prominence than David Lynch gave to Sting in his 1984 film and Butler delivers the goods making Feyd-Rautha a real threat to Paul.

As in PART ONE, this film introduces a few new characters towards the end of the story that we’ll no doubt see again. In one brief flashforward, Paul’s as yet born sister, Alia (Anya Taylor-Joy, THE MENU) is seen, and it would appear that Lady Margot Fenring (Léa Seydoux, NO TIME TO DIE), a Bene Gesserit and close friend of the Emperor, will return as well. Meanwhile, PART TWO ends with quite a few other questions that only those who have read the book might know the answers to.

DUNE: PART TWO opens in Hong Kong today (February 29^th), and around the world tomorrow. If you’re a fan, you won’t be disappointed. Don’t let the long runtime dissuade you. It goes by fairly quickly. Be sure to spend the extra cash and see it in IMAX. It’s worth it.

I have a couple of souvenir tickets from my screening to give away. If you’d like to have them, just drop me a comment below and I’ll put them in the post for you. They have sand in them!

Thanks for reading but don’t be a lurker! If you liked what you just read, here are some suggestions:

Sign up to receive my movie reviews in your inbox automatically
Share this review on your Facebook page
Leave me a message telling me what you thought of my review or the film
Bookmark the site and visit often
Like my Howard For Film Facebook page
Watch my reviews on my YouTube page
Check out my Howard For Film magazine on Flipboard
Tell your friends about the site