Ericsson97’s review published on Letterboxd:
8.5/10
Sooo… Audiovisually beyond any doubt. But this masterpiece, in a series of films such as "The Dark Knight", "The Lord of the Rings", Apocalpyse Now" or "Parasite" it has not become (but that's just my view).
The problems, the core problems, that I already had with the predecessor have unfortunately not disappeared. Dennis Villeneuve still had to cram a lot of content into this movie, that was an immense task. This is probably one of the reasons why the pacing looks much quicker than in part 1. Villeneuve takes a lot of time for the worldbuilding and to introduce new characters, all in the first 2 acts. Sometimes too much time, because the content doesn't get really interesting until Act 3 at least. That wouldn't be so bad if the pay-off had been much bigger. Yes, there are goosebump moments in the movie, but they are 80 percent audiovisual in nature. Because the character development of the figures was too vague for that. The best example is Paul Atreides, played by Timothee Chalament. Incidentally, I'm correcting the opinion I wrote about him in my previous review. It's not due to Chalament's acting, but to the script material, which doesn't allow Paul's development to be shown. Chalament is only given his predictions repeatedly, but why he does what and why he does what only scratches the surface.
All in all, it's too superficial, I feel it lacks a bit more depth. I know that Dennis Villeneuve had an almost impossible task filming "Dune". I've also heard that the characters in Frank Herbert's film aren't written out very much because for Herbert the plot was more important. That may work very well in the book, but it causes problems in the movie. Nevertheless... it's a spectacular movie that you should definitely see in the cinema. And if Villeneuve failed to meet my expectations for the second time and "Dune 2" is his weakest film to date, I still believe that "Dune Messiah" will be the masterpiece people are promising. And I'm pretty sure we'll get to see this movie one day.
