I reminded myself before sitting down that this was a near-impossible adaptation. Even if Villeneuve and his team embraced the moral darkness at the heart of the novel (really, if Warner Bros allowed them to), the film still had to be a crowd-pleasing action spectacle of the highest order. This tightrope walk demands perfection; I'm still not sure general audiences will be pleased, but I sure am.

Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts' screenplay doesn't just echo Herbert’s cynical examination of the way religion is constructed and manipulated to serve the powers that control it; it charges headlong into these themes. The most significant addition is the expansion of Chani's role, giving voice (or, sometimes, just a crushed look of defeat) to a perspective even the novel doesn't explicitly platform.

For Herbert, Paul's internal conflict—and visions of an unavoidable, horrific jihad for which he's responsible—are central in a way only possible through the interiority allowed by a novel. Villeneuve had to find a different approach to convey these ideas, with the heavy lifting performed almost entirely by an astonishing Zendaya and Javier Bardem, who manage to be both the most effortlessly lighthearted and the most heartbreaking parts of the film.

Of course, Villeneuve's camera is as responsible for the success of the ideas on screen as any performance. The term I used to encapsulate his direction in the first film was “wonder,” with Paul's slight frame contrasted against the scale of the world, reminiscent of Kubrick or Spielberg. Here, like the Fremon religion, wonder is bastardized. Paul doesn't gaze upon the beauty of Arrakis but on war. He's not dwarfed by a sandy desert but by the crowds that blindly worship him.

Finally, the love for Dune's world is palpable. All the trippy, weird, wonderful details of Herbert's novel are depicted in the most literal of terms possible, with wise adaptation choices bringing them to life—Alia being a prime example of adaptation done correctly.

Love the new cast. Love Greig Fraser's black-and-white photography. Love how this film gets even darker than the first. Rebecca Ferguson deserves a nom (or a win) for best supporting actress, managing to embody both the mother and the Bene Gesserit.

Now, onto Dune: Messiah.

The Films of 2024: #1 | Denis Villeneuve Ranked: #2