just saw this TWICE today. can i live at filmscene plz? why would i ever need to be anywhere else but in a movie theater surrounded by hans zimmer music so loud that it shakes my chest?

anyway, this film is pretty incredible, worth seeing in the biggest and loudest theater u can find. villeneuve's style can be off-puttingly sterile for some (to some extent, i felt that way with his blade runner 2049), but i think it's working wonders in his dune movies: everything feels appropriately gargantuan and imposing.

the performances are really compelling—this is the first time i’ve bought into timothée chalamet as a bona fide action star—and the story is more satisfying than in part one. it’s impressive how economically the film is able to get us up to speed on the jargon and worldbuilding and political maneuvering; the whole thing is surprisingly easy to follow.

there’s a tension in how the film both rehearses and critiques the colonialist tropes of midcentury sci-fi, a tension which i suspect exists in the original book.

but overall: this is great, unabashed visual storytelling, incredibly big and confident. i appreciate a genre picture with enough technical chops to justify its self-importance. 😉