Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”
-John 7:38

Stupendous in its adjacent approach to audiovisual epicism. The moral conflicts of Messianism, the struggle for a collective identity based on the fulfillments of a prophecy, and the mere act of choosing a side are more palpable than before. The Great Colosseum of insanity and thirst for violence is merely an episode in the juxtaposition between technologically-based “power” vs. spirituality and tradition: faith dies at the end. The whole ideological conundrum completes unfinished thematic and individualistic arcs that the first feature lazily half-baked: Bene Gesserit’s litanies against fear, the water of life as something that renews the spirit (John 4: 13-14), the lisaan al-ghaib (لسان الغيب,) coming to with his fate and identity, and the elimination of cultural appropriation through cultural adoption.

The cinematography work by Greig Fraser grants miraculous sights in spite of a horrid black-and-white filter usage during an important villain introduction: by this point, I think it should be clearly understood that it’s not a gimmick to superficially change the mood while looking like any photo app filter for fun, but it should be in complete harmony with lighting to creates shadows, tension and chiaroscuros in harmony (once again) with the emotions at hand. However, Skarsgård provides a rendition even more powerful, conflicting and evil than before, and Zimmer’s score, as good as it is, gets thankfully shut down when the physical clashes must play their own orchestra of brutality, precisely the reason why the opening sequence and the confrontation against Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen are my favorites.

The biggest surprise was not only that this reminded me of Nausicaä’s even greater messianic, epic levels of grandiosity in cinema, but also that this film has fulfilled the Christopher Walken meme prophecy.

84/100