Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides and Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck in ‘Dune: Part Two.’ Photograph: Niko Tavernise/© 2024 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved. / Click to view the trailer
I’ve been enjoying, and I mean really enjoying, the films of French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve, 56, ever since Sicario (2015). Prisoners from two years earlier, yes, made an impact, but Sicario brought to the screen a hard-hitting soundtrack, rhythmical and broken-rhythm editing, a reliance on stunning cinematography, and actors who I believe would be hard to get out of character even at Sunday supper.
Then came Dune: Part One in 2021, and it changed the game for how modern sci-fi is made, as the world succumbed to global worming.
It all comes down to love. The 1965 book by Frank Herbert has been a favorite of Villeneuve’s since he was a teenager.
“‘Dune’ merged with the birth of my love of cinema. It became a book that stayed with me over the years and that I kept beside me,” the director told the Los Angeles Times.
Herbert’s sci-fi novel chronicles the rise to power of the heir to the throne, Paul Atreides, in the desert world of Arrakis, the only known source of the trance-inducing spice melange distilled from the droppings of giant sandworms. On his journey, Paul discovers that his actions, for good or ill, may determine the fate of the universe.
The second part is 166 minutes long, and while researching the sci-fi world, some diehard fans argued that a Dune movie could even be four hours long, which in some circles would probably still not be enough (the first part was “only” 155 minutes in duration) because a true lover of Arrakis and sandworms and spice would like to be immersed in the Dune universe forever and ever and ever.
So much for the Hollywood formula that to maximize revenue and distribution, the movie should be a maximum of two hours and eight minutes long. (Dune: Part One grossed $402 million on a $165 million budget.)
Dune: Part Two is largely set in the desert, filmed in locations like Abu Dhabi.
The desert has been a cinematic inspiration for Villeneuve ever since he saw Lawrence of Arabia (1962), the nearly four-hour epic that he considers a master class in filmmaking and one of his favorite films, with its Middle Eastern desert landscape capturing the enchanting oasis in the middle of the arid desert.
Desert … desert … desert ….
However, Villeneuve says that both Dune films were based solely on the book because he didn’t want to compare himself to other filmmakers and because he wanted to get as close to the essence of Frank Herbert’s poetry as possible.
Paul Atreides is played by Timothée Chalamet, 28, an American who grew up with artistic parents and family, and who had his first major role playing Joseph Cooper’s (Matthew McConaughey) son, Tom, in the well-received sci-fi film Interstellar (2014), directed by Christopher Nolan. Later, Chalamet rose to fame playing Elio Perlman, a 17-year-old boy who discovers his homosexuality with an older American college graduate student, in director Luca Guadagnino’s critically acclaimed Call Me by Your Name (2017).
Achievements like these have branded Chalamet in some circles as an androgynous actor, a sort of hermaphrodite, but this is far from the truth.
“Timothée is a thoughtful, poetic spirit,” said Dune director Villeneuve in an interview with Time magazine. “I’m always impressed by his beautiful vulnerability.”
Villeneuve and Chalamet met sometime before the first Dune at the Cannes Film Festival on the French Riviera, and after a successful meeting, Villeneuve knew he wanted to cast him. In a recent video interview, Villeneuve said seeing Chalamet grow from the boy in the first film to the charismatic dark figure in the second was phenomenal.
Indeed.
Chalamet buries any doubters in the desert with his gravitating role.
The supporting cast, including Zendaya, who plays one of the Fremen (the desert people) Chani Kynes, and the antagonist Feyd-Rautha, portrayed by Austin Butler, who we remember from his riveting performance as Elvis in the titular movie from 2022, do a fantastic job at what they were cast to do.
And then there’s Josh Brolin, “the face of the military,” a good description I think I heard somewhere, an Oscar nominee who has appeared in countless roles from Sicario to Milk and from Women in Trouble to No Country for Old Men.
Many of these films were made after the turn of the millennium, but Brolin’s career began in 1985 after he was cast in The Goonies, written by legendary director Steven Spielberg.
In the Dune installments, Brolin plays Gurney Halleck, a skilled warrior and mentor to Paul—a man of honor and dignity accomplished in combat in the desert!
With Villeneuve at the helm, Dune: Part Two is nothing like the 1962 Lawrence of Arabia that once inspired the great director.
As the late actor Omar Sharif described the epic where he was in: it was a movie with no stars, no women, no love story, and not much action.
Dune: Part Two has it all.
It was a thrilling, action-packed tale that rocked black Italian leather seats for nearly three hours while keeping viewers glued to a screen larger than a volleyball court.
That said, while this movie should be enjoyed in the largest movie auditorium you can find, the strong storytelling would bring deep enjoyment even if it was streamed to your mobile device while sitting in the bathroom
‘Dune: Part Two’ is now playing in Finland and worldwide on March 1.
