DUNE: PART TWO (12A, 166 minutes)
Verdict: A spectacular sandy area
Dune blew up all over Leicester Square at the world premiere a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been to many grand openings there over the years, but never one so extravagant, with so much fanfare, and causing such a frenzy.
Probably not for 60 years, since the heyday of The Beatles, has that area of central London resonated with the kind of boisterous adoration directed (this time) at the star of the Dune films, 28-year-old Timothee Chalamet. And at least there were four Beatles to share the spotlight. The young American star has ‘Chalamania’, as it is known, all to himself.
The biggest issue, though, was this: Would Denis Villeneuve’s epic sequel justify the fuss, not to mention the investment of an entire evening? Dune: Part Two is almost three hours long. It’s even longer than the first movie and seemed to last forever.
Fortunately, that’s how it is. The 2021 film addressed many of the plot complexities that for years fueled the belief that Frank Herbert’s powerful 1965 sci-fi novel was “unfilmable” (claims not exactly debunked by David Lynch’s 1984 stinker ). It was fantastic but exhausting, laboriously introducing us to the interplanetary empire Herbert envisioned and the various dynasties fighting for power or simply survival.
The sequel has a thankfully simpler narrative. On the barren planet Arrakis, with most of his kin annihilated, Paul Atreides (Chalamet) prepares to lead the beleaguered and disenfranchised Fremen tribe against him and their mortal enemies, the formidably evil House Harkonnen.
Timothee Chalamet (pictured) reprises his role as Paul Atreides in Dune: Part Two. On the barren planet Arrakis, with most of his kin wiped out, Paul prepares to lead the beleaguered and bereft Fremen tribe against the formidably evil House Harkonnen.
Paul (Chalamet), who has a truly exciting duel with the emerging champion of the House of Harkonnen (a shaved-headed Austin Butler).
Zendaya (pictured) plays Chani, Paul’s Fremen lover. Paul’s goal is to disrupt spice production, but unlike our own Just Stop Oil brigade, he needs to do more than lie down on a motorway.
Ruled by the grotesque Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgard in a wobbly, fat suit), to whom they swear allegiance in chilling Nuremberg-style rallies, the Harkonnens owe their political and military supremacy to their control of “spice,” the most valuable commodity. in this country. universe, generally assumed by Dune devotees to be a metaphor for oil.
Paul’s goal is to disrupt spice production, but unlike our own Just Stop Oil brigade, he needs to do more than lie down on a motorway. Anyway, Arrakis doesn’t have highways. It’s a vast desert, in which he must prove his worth to the Fremen by overcoming various challenges, such as sand surfing behind a worm about the size of a superyacht.
Paul has a useful ally in the Fremen chief Stilgar (Javier Bardem), not to mention a Fremen lover, the hot and beautiful Chani (Zendaya).
But there are others who distrust him. Is she a false prophet or his true ‘mahdi’, his messiah? His modesty confirms it. “The Mahdi is too humble to say he’s the Mahdi,” someone says approvingly, which reminded me a lot of the scene in Life of Brian, when Brian’s efforts to convince his followers that he’s completely normal backfire, on the grounds that only the true messiah would deny his divinity.
I hope Villeneuve also had Monty Python in mind, because otherwise there’s not much obvious wit or fun in this film.
But it is extremely elegant, with a penetrating score by Hans Zimmer and wonderful work by cinematographer Greig Fraser.
Primarily, the action plays out in subtle shades of brown and beige, as if the set designers were being told to confine themselves to the confines of Farrow & Ball’s color chart. This makes Paul’s eyes appear even bluer, a bit like Peter O’Toole’s in Lawrence of Arabia. As Noel Coward said at that premiere, if he had been prettier, he might have been called Florence of Arabia. The same goes for Chalamet. If he had been more dazzling, they would have had to call him June.
Rebecca Ferguson (pictured) reprises her role as Paul’s mother: Lady Jessica. There are stars everywhere you look, in a lavish film in every sense, which demands to be seen on the big screen
Florence Pugh (pictured) is a newcomer to the franchise. She plays Princess Irulan, the Emperor’s scheming daughter.
Paul (Chalamet) and Chani (Zendaya) kiss in the sand dunes of Arrakis. Primarily, the action plays out in subtle shades of brown and beige, as if the set designers were being told to confine themselves to the confines of Farrow & Ball’s color chart.
Paul (Chalamet) walking through the arid landscape of Arrakis. It’s probably not been 60 years, since the heyday of The Beatles, that Leicester Square has resonated with the kind of boisterous adoration directed (this time) at Dune films star Timothee, 28, during the Leicester Square premiere .
But Paul is above all a fierce warrior, who has a truly exciting duel with the emerging Harkonnen champion (a shaved-headed Austin Butler), and whose muscular beauty pleases Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh), his scheming daughter. Emperor (Christopher Walken).
Butler, Pugh and Walken are new additions to the cast, by the way, along with Lea Seydoux and, in a cameo, Anya Taylor-Joy. Also returning from the first film are Rebecca Ferguson and Charlotte Rampling. There are stars everywhere, in a film that is lavish in every way and demands to be seen on a big screen.
It’s really spectacular. But have sandwiches.
Red Island (12A, 117 minutes)
Verdict: Make believe in Madagascar
This engagingly quirky (and visually stunning) French-language drama is set on a French air force base in Madagascar in the early 1970s, where former colonizers continue to assert their control over the now-independents.
Writer and director Robin Campillo immerses us in the daily life of a family: the moody aviator father, his fickle wife, his marital tensions and those of his friends.
But the focus is mainly on their impossibly cute eight-year-old son, Thomas (Charlie Vauselle), whose superhero fantasies come to life in strangely seductive little interludes as he seeks refuge from the strange world of adults.
Red Island is now in cinemas and also on Curzon Home Cinema.