For it is the Kwisatz Haderach!

I had a lot of expectations for Denis Villeneuve's "Dune: Part 2," which I tried to temper but to no avail. The first "Dune" was so well done and my trust in Villeneuve as a director made it hard for me to lower my expectations. The issue is that Frank Herbert's Dune is a very, very long book with a lot of information in it, and putting that into a feature-length movie format is a task that few directors were willing to attempt, and only one succeeded in doing. 

Even then, David Lynch's 1984 "Dune" is either loved or hated depending on who you talk to, though it's definitely a cult classic at this point, but I digress. 

I'm happy to say that while it does have a few flaws, my belief that Villeneuve can do no wrong survives. 

"Dune: Part 2" is incredible.

The following contains some minor spoilers. 

The film picks up exactly where the last one left off, with Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and his mother Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) being escorted to the hidden base of Dune's natives, the Fremen. Led by the Southern fundamentalist Stilgar (Javier Bardem) and accompanied by the foretold love interest Chani (Zendaya), the two remaining members of House Atreides must find a way to integrate themselves into the Fremen to both survive and find a path to avenge their fallen family and countrymen who House Harkonnen slaughtered. 

From here, things start moving quickly. Very quickly...and while I could say this is a gripe I have with the film, I'm not entirely sure it's something Villeneuve could have helped. While the first film focused on introducing the Atreides and the situation on the planet Arrakis, including the grand betrayal, as well as Jessica and Paul's attempt at surviving by going into hiding, it took its time to tell the story and felt very well paced. 

"Dune 2" is a movie that jumps weeks and months with blink-and-you-miss-it exposition to tell you where they are in the timeline. In fact, the best way to judge the passage of time is to look at Jessica's stomach to see how far along she is in her pregnancy, which I thought was a clever choice by Villeneuve. 

But as fans of Dune will know, Villeneuve didn't have much of a choice but to resort to this speedy pacing because a lot has to happen to reach the ending, but I'm happy to report that even then, the film manages to not become confusing, nor does it overwhelm the viewer with too much information. Exposition is given naturally so you're well aware of what's happening at all times. By the time you get to the end, you feel like you've arrived there naturally. 

For a Dune fan like me, however, I almost felt like the movie was over too quickly thanks to the break-neck pacing, and wouldn't have minded an extra 15 minutes to flesh out some of the story a little more. 

But that's legitimately the only gripe I have about the movie. Everything else is stunning. 

This includes the settings. Villeneuve has a talent for making his cinematography look like posters or paintings you could hang on your wall and he doesn't disappoint here. Dune is an epic tale and the cinematography reflects this with grand landscapes. In fact, everything is open and wide in "Dune: Part 2," even when the shots are underground. You would do yourself a favor by seeing this in an Imax theater to really soak in the grandeur. 

The desert is big, the sietches are big, the spaceships are big, and the worms are big. When the granddaddy Shai-Hulud (giant desert worm) makes his first appearance, it's a spectacle. 

You also get to see other planets explored more in the sequel. Giedi Prime, the home planet of the Harkonnens, is also grand in scale but still manages to feel oppressive and unsafe. It's completely greyscaled and the architecture feels brutalist yet futuristic at the same time. Unlike Arrakis, Giedi Prime's sky isn't open and the towering structures are intimidating. 

Thanks to the actors, Giedi Prime feels far more unsafe than Arrakis. While the former is clean yet oppressive, the latter feels dirty but free, and it really sells the idea that the Harkonnens don't belong on Arakkis and their presence there is unnatural. 

But none of this means anything if the actors can't sell it, and the actors do a far better job than I thought they would. Chalamet managed to deliver a performance that I didn't think him too capable of. While he played the naive and sometimes petulant young son well enough, his transition to the warlord and religious figure is actually delivered well. Chalamet isn't a large man so he has no intimidating presence physically, and as such, everything he does has to be delivered through a sense of charismatic authority which he manages to pull off. 

Backing him up is Bardem's Stilgar which feeds that sense of authority and the brilliant Josh Brolin who falls into the role of Gurney Halleck so naturally that I would rank this performance above even his role as Thanos. Whenever Brolin is in a scene, he steals it.

Ferguson's delivery as Jessica was also well done and was likely complicated as she had to technically play two characters. Villeneuve chose not to have Jessica give birth to Alia Atreides, and instead had her be pregnant for the entire movie, but this doesn't mean Alia doesn't have a role. Alia communicates through Jessica, even advising Paul in one scene with Jessica as the go-between. 

At one point, Alia does make an appearance in human form for a few seconds to Paul in a vision, being played by Anya Taylor-Joy. While she doesn't stick around long, it does indicate that perhaps Villeneuve has more plans for the Dune universe. 

But if I had to give my highest praise to any of the actors, it would be to Austin Butler for his portrayal of the sadistic Feyd-Rautha. Butler manages to do what Heath Ledger did with The Joker and gives you an unpredictable villain that could kill or maim at any moment because he felt like it while also being conniving and calculating. He manages to be more intimidating than even Stellan Skarsgård's Baron Harkonnen, the primary antagonist. 

My only acting complaint goes to Zendaya. The Critical Drinker made the point in his video that Zendaya seems to deliver the same performance no matter what movie she's in, and I have to agree here. While I can't say that she under-delivers as Chani, I wouldn't say that any of her parts make the movie shine like Butler or Brolin. She definitely contributes to the movie, but if the movie had featured her any more than it did then she would have overstayed her welcome.

Overall, the film manages to be a well-delivered sequel that could be considered Villeneuve's greatest achievement. While I do think "Dune" is slightly better than "Dune 2," Villeneuve had a lot of hurdles in the delivery of the rest of the story and could have easily tripped up and fallen flat, but he didn't. He pulled off something that many filmmakers would not have been able to. 

The box office numbers reflect that. The domestic weekend numbers show the movie brought in $81.5 million with $178.5 million globally. This is pretty great, and it's not done yet. There will definitely be repeat viewings. I went to see it alone at an Alamo Drafthouse and came to the conclusion that I made the mistake of not watching it on the screen the movie deserved. I'll be going a second time, this time with my wife, to watch it on an Imax screen. 

Because this movie is a spectacle and a great achievement. You should definitely go see it, not just to get a great movie experience in, but because good and well-crafted cinema deserves to be rewarded.