DUNE Part Two (2023)

Another three hours with those feudin’ Spice Seekers.  Sounds ominous; and sure enough, the first act of Part Two is Part One Redux: Body Fluids, Baffling Battles, and a Baby Swap, while our Princely (possibly messianic) young hero (Jesus or Siegfried?) rises thru various tribes on a foreign planet to ever grander management positions as Spice Defender & Comptroller.  Or something like that.  But once he hooks onto the Moby Dick of killer sand worms and sews up a victory, something unexpected happens.  Ultra-literalist director Denis Villeneuve, always an odd choice for this foul & fantastic material, sticks in a tiny joke.  (The first in four hours!)   It comes during a love scene for warrior leads Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya, a first kiss made clumsy by sand filtering nose plugs.  The glam pair as awkward as teens negotiating a smooch thru dental braces.  Soon, another gag as Villeneuve slips in an unmistakable nod toward Marlon Brando, vocally & visually thru main villains Stellan Skarsgård (Old Marlon) and grandson Austin Butler (Young Brando).   Skarsgård getting what amounts to a visual quote from APOCALYPSE NOW/’79.)  More comic Easter Eggs to come*, along with far more fluid (no pun intended) action footage with far better integration on some tricks tried in Part One.  And though he can’t keep it up (this is self-serving/serious Denis Villeneuve), we do get some stylization & dazzle that helps us get thru the wallow of Act Three.  (Which includes that hoariest of tropes, the misdirected coup de grâce in a duel to the death.)   Before that, Bread & Circuses stuff during a Gladiatorial contest composed with slashing diagonals in ultra-stylized high-contrast monochrome.  Then back to battles, politics & intimations of clay feet, before we’re threatened with a possible Part Three.  Indeed, between fan base, awards & box-office, inevitable.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  Naturally, the retroactively retitled DUNE: Part One.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2022/04/dune-2021.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *A particular favorite may be unintentional, but whenever Chalamet calls to old fighting pal Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin) his little boy blue voice makes ‘Gurney’ sound like ‘Bernie.’  Something positively endearing in this massive space epic to have anyone named Bernie.  How’d a guy from Brooklyn get in here?.