Dune Part 2

This weekend, Dune Part 2 releases in theaters. Dune Part 2 follows Paul Atreides as he is taken in by the Freeman on Arrakis and tries to persuade them to take back the planet. If you have no idea what I am talking about, you'll probably need to watch Part 1. This was my most anticipated movie of the year as well as one of my most anticipated of 2023 so I was very excited to see this. It was supposed to come out last year but got delayed due to the SAG strike.

This movie is just as good as I hoped it would be. It looks great and the scale is nothing short of epic. The visuals are amazing. The CGI looks so realistic and makes it feel like they are actually on a desert planet. This movie is proof that you don't need to spend $250 million to make a movie look great. The filmmaking style and overall cinematography are just so well done and make the movie feel different from the typical blockbuster film. The movie also has this very epic feel to it. All of the set pieces are so large in size, the battles are huge and the stakes are great. It feels a bit like Lord of the Rings with the space action of Star Wars. The movie also has a stacked cast that is just a lot of fun. We get Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Josh Brolin, Rebecca Ferguson, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista, Christopher Walken, and many others. Even with so many characters, the movie does a great job of making sure each character gets their moment and character arc. No character feels shoehorned into the story or like an unnecessary presence. I also found all of the characters to be very strong well-written characters. They all have some sort of an arc or in the case of the villains, get built so that you love to hate them. The movie also does a great job of adapting the book and sticking to the source material. It didn't change the major components of the story and only cut some things to slim the story down a bit. One of the biggest changes that I actually liked was the relationship between Paul and Chani. I think the movie does a much more effective job than the book. The book kind of pushes Chani to the side while the movie raises her to be Paul's partner and have a much larger role in the story. It gives her a much better character arc than just the wife character who is only good to make babies. Finally, I thought that the movie did a great job with pacing. At almost 3 hours long, it had the potential to drag, but this movie manages to make those 3 hours fly by. There is never much of a slow moment as everything feels like it is advancing the story forward.

I don't really have any issues with this movie. The only gripe I could have was that they did eliminate the Alia character from the movie when she has a pretty significant role at the end of the book. But beyond that, I couldn't have asked for a better adaption of Dune.

Overall, this is a great story of epic scale with great characters and a solid relationship subplot. I think this movie is better than part 1 and I am fairly confident that it will be in my top 5 of the year.

Score: 9.5/10 Grade: A Recommendation: This is a must see film.