Old Man Angelo’s review published on Letterboxd:
For the fourth time in a row Denis Villeneuve crafts one of the great science fiction epics of our time and for the fourth time in a row it’s far too goddamn much for me to comprehend in a single viewing. Every single frame and line of dialogue is full of so much texture, depth and detail, there’s so much to unpack, I only truly feel locked into Part One recently after a third viewing but I suspect there’s so much more here that will take a lot longer.
If the first one is about Paul’s head being filled with nonsense from everyone except Duke Leto and Duncan, the only two people who see him as a son and friend respectively and would’ve been content if he’d just lived a normal life, this is Paul’s full blown radicalisation. When he’s wanting the desert ostensibly learning the ways of the Fremen to hopefully one day avenge his father, he’s constantly seeking affirmation from the apparition of Jamis, a fanatic Fremen who wanted to kill Paul rather than any of his father figures from his home world of Caladan.
Which leads me to Timothee Chamalet. What a gigantic glow up from where he was in the first film to here. This will cement him as a megastar absolutely. This is beyond the Paul I imagined reading in the books, amazing work embodying it, I went from thinking he should be recast for the older Paul in later stories to thinking Villeneuve better take all the time he needs for Timothee to get to the right age.
Villeneuve too seems to unlock yet another level of greatness. I think this movie will be his Dark Knight and I hope it means he’s got the Christopher Nolan blank cheque treatment. Even on a basic technical level the sheer audacity of the visuals is something else.
It’s quite astounding how he was able to walk the tight line between making both parts feel like one cohesive whole, viewable as a singular film experience while also managing to keep both entries feeling unique in their way. It’s a miracle we got the final and ultimate Dune adaptation on screen (I’ll still go back to you Lynch film and the SyFy miniseries don’t worry) but rather than make it feel like a definitive conclusion he ends it as abruptly as he did part one to feed into the next one. The wait for Dune Messiah will be excruciating
