Posted on by slickdungeon

Dune: Part Two

Dune: Part Two
Timothée Chalamet stars in Dune: Part Two
Timothée Chalamet stars in Dune: Part Two

Hello movie lovers, it’s Slick Dungeon here! Today I’ve got a recommendation for a movie you should watch whether or not you are an Oscars fan. Dune: Part Two is a sweeping science fiction masterpiece that has to be seen to be believed. It’s beautifully crafted, well acted, and in some areas, even improves on the source material. Let’s get into it!

What is Dune: Part Two about?

Obviously this film is a sequel to the first Dune film. I won’t spoil that movie here for you but if you want to know more about it, read my review here. The second film in the series continues to follow Paul Atreides. Paul is played by Timothée Chalamet who puts in an epic performance. Zendaya also plays a seriously impressive role in this film. Paul is prophesied to be the savior of many worlds in the galaxy. He has made an alliance on a desert planet with people called the Fremen.

At the same time, there are rival houses who want to kill him, and an oppressive emperor who rules the galaxy with an iron fist. Paul has to navigate faith, politics, love, and family all while he himself is uncertain about the future.

It is an intricately complicated story and while I will always recommend reading the book, the movie actually makes some improvements by speeding up time a bit, introducing some events from later books, and adding to the roles of a few other characters.

And I will say, if you can see this at a theater on a big screen, this is the best experience of the film. I definitely advise you to watch the first part before watching the second but this is a film experience. And I personally think it’s better than the first one.

the Awards

This movie is up for awards in 5 categories. Best Sound, Best Visual Effects, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design and Best Picture are the ones it landed nominations for. I think Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, and Javier Bardem all deserved to be nominated for their acting but I guess they’ll just have to be satisfied with the huge paychecks they got from this movie. Timothée Chalamet does get a shot for a different movie, A Complete Unknown which I will review later this week.

As far as the technical categories go, it would be a total shame if Dune: Part Two doesn’t win at least some of them. Sound was incredibly impressive and used to great effect in this film. And the cinematography is chef’s kiss perfect. Production design was great but there may be better contenders in that category. And let’s just say, the visual effects are jaw dropping in this movie. It’s fantastic. If this movie does lose in any of those categories, my guess is Wicked will pick them up instead. But I’m hoping Dune gets something here.

As far as Best Picture goes I don’t think this will win. Now, I will say, I thought this was an incredible movie and maybe it should win. But, science fiction almost never wins. I’m still bitter about Star Wars not taking home the win in 1977. I haven’t seen all the movies in the category for this year so there could be a better movie but this one is definitely in the top three, at least for me.

Dune: Part Two in conclusion

If you can get to a theater to watch this before it is gone, run, don’t walk. It’s an incredible movie experience and it just doesn’t work as well at home. But even if you can’t get there, do at least watch it at home if you are a science fiction fan at all. It’s one of the most well made movies in the last decade, hands down.

Awardingly yours,

Slick Dungeon

P.S. Want to see what I thought of the Best Picture winner last year? Check out my review of Oppenheimer!

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Dune – Movie Review

Dune (2021)

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Hello film fanatics, it’s me, Slick Dungeon. I’m here to review the last of the Oscar nominees. This time it’s the sci-fi space epic Dune. Be warned there will be spoilers below so if you care about that sort of thing, button up your stillsuit and watch out for sand worms as you head back to the theater to watch the film. Then ride your ornithopter back here to read the review.

For this review I am going to start with the obvious. Nothing, not any media translation ever, will be better than reading the work of brilliance that is Frank Herbert’s Dune. If you have not read that book and you like science fiction at all, you are doing yourself a disservice. So be sure to read that.

Still, for years and years people have attempted to do a decent translation of the text to film. It had an older version that was… well… it’s a little dated and odd if you watch it now but it was a thing. This new version starring Timothee Chalamet tells the first half of the book. Well, not quite the first half actually but it tells the beginning of the book.

The film looks fantastic. And the acting here is extremely good. While there are definitely parts of the book left out of the film entirely, it covers enough of the story that you can get a basic picture of it.

The pacing is a bit slow but so is the novel at times. The book was never about the action but more about politics and deeper meaning.

It’s fairly hard to summarize a plot for the book but if you want to know the basics, Paul is a young man who is set to inherit a lot of wealth and privilege from his father the Baron Leto. Leto has been given a planet to rule over by the Emperor of basically everything. This planet is a desert planet which has an extremely valuable resource called spice. The spice powers interstellar travel and is a bit of a hallucinogenic when ingested. Paul knows his fate is wrapped up in this planet because he sees visions of his future. Paul’s family has a bitter rivalry with a rival house called the Harkonnens who have had to give up the Dune planet to Baron Leto. Everyone expects Leto to fail, the emperor included.

There’s a whole lot more to summarize but if I get too much more into it I am giving away important plot points.

One thing I found somewhat frustrating with this film was the sound quality. There were times when the music in the background literally overwhelms what the actors were saying, making it hard to understand certain parts.

But I will say as far as Dune adaptations go, this is the best one so far. I don’t think this is going to win best picture because they never give that to a sci-fi movie but it’s worth watching, especially if you do like the books.

Awarding-ly yours,

Slick Dungeon