Dune: Part Two, based on the second half of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel Dune, is the latest installment of sci-fi director Denis Villeneuve’s film adaptation of Herbert’s book series. The film had a budget of 190 million dollars and was released on March 1st, 2024, to be met with extraordinary critical acclaim, grossing over 711,800,000 dollars worldwide and becoming the highest grossing movie of Villeneuve’s career.
The movie takes place shortly after Dune: Part One, released in 2021, and quickly establishes the mood and stakes of the film with an electrifyingly tense, action-packed opening sequence. Every character’s journey is seamlessly picked up from where they were left off by the end of the first movie, and the film provides viewers with enough context of prior events to create a very engaging standalone story, but watching both parts is definitely the best way to enjoy the series so far.
Besides each cast member’s stellar performance, the immersive sound design, and Hans Zimmer’s unique soundtrack, one of the stand-out features of this movie is Greig Fraser’s masterful, grounded cinematography. Each and every shot of this movie was meticulously crafted to look as realistic as possible, as if a physical camera could have captured every single scene without defying the laws of physics like a virtual camera would have.
Dune: Part Two currently has 8.5/10 stars on IMDb, a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 79% on Metacritic. My personal rating will be a 9/10 because despite the slight gaps in information that the movie brings with being the second part in a movie series, it is still one of the most impressive, entertaining, and thought provoking science fiction films in recent history. My Acting Highlight goes to Rebecca Ferguson for the role of Lady Jessica; she does a fantastic job of portraying the more frightening aspects of her character.
I would recommend Dune: Part Two to fans of sci-fi, action-adventure, and, well, cinema. The movie can be found on streaming services such as Max and Hulu, and it can be purchased on DVD or Blu-ray. That concludes this Movie Review!