Cinebuffs Recommends
Compared to what we've seen recently in the galactic space opera genre, this is the best of it. No surprise given that Denis Villeneuve has the clout to make it so, and the money, and the talent, and the story.
Let's be brutally honest, this was never going to be allowed to be shit or anything near it. After my initial grumbling about the first film, we begin to see here why. For everyone that espoused and gushed over the first of Villeneuve's efforts, I would ask them to think about just how much better this was and remind people of what makes it so. Essentially, when you've already handed out five stars to a clearly inferior product, where do you go from there? Furthermore, does your five stars then really mean anything?
I called the last one 'spectacle over substance' and 'pretty'. The second of these comments remains true, Villeneuve couldn't not if he tried to make the whole thing look anything other than a stupifyingly splendid treat for the eyeballs. What is different this time around is the gravitas of the whole affair, which is a very different kettle of fish, fleshing out those characters that needed so desperately to be rounded out previously, in a universe that is finally starting to grow into its oversized sand boots. And not before time. No bucket and spade expected this time around for the Atreides spawn, who last time really looked like he needed it.
Chalomet's performance is thankfully nearer the Paul we have all come to expect and also everything that part one was missing - a believable, credible, formidable protaganist which he failed, quite markedly, to pull off previously. Now that we are into the guts and glory, he comes into his own and I never thought of Willy Wonka once in the whole of the runtime. Quite the feat, as you can imagine, given how bloody long this was, again, and my penchant for a chocolate raisin.
All in all, this was better than the first one by some degree, so gets an extra star. I'm saving the fifth and final star for part three as going by the leaps and bounds between one and two, the last one (please) should be an honest-to-goodness masterpiece.