Dune: Part Two Review

Villeneuve arrives here with the world already built and spends the advantage on set pieces that pay off two films of setup: the first worm ride shot from Paul's shoulder as the maker hooks catch the ring, the raid on the harvester with Fremen dropping down a cliff face. The Giedi Prime arena is the standout, photographed with infrared cameras so the Harkonnen sun renders as a black star and skin as bleached porcelain, an image genuinely unlike anything else in blockbuster cinema.

Austin Butler's Feyd-Rautha is a coiled, lipless threat, and Rebecca Ferguson's turn as a Reverend Mother pushing her son toward prophecy is the most disturbing thread in it. Crucially the script does not soften Paul, letting him become something frightening, and Chani's dissent gives the audience somewhere to stand. The dialogue remains functional prophecy-speak, Christopher Walken's Emperor is underused, and the ending closes a chapter rather than a story. As staged spectacle it is the high-water mark of its decade.