I have the same praises and complaints with Dune Part 2 that I had with Dune Part 1. I once again left the theater with this incredibly strange feeling of being absolutely blown away but also unimpressed.

My main praises are for the cinematography, production design, and CGI… It’s hard to imagine those 3 things EVER being better than they are in this movie. It’s like magic, I don’t know how they do any of it but it’s beyond spectacular and incredibly artistic. That to me is where the movie truly excels and basically stands out among everything else in cinematic history. I also think that’s why everyone is rating it 5/5 stars… bc it’s so epic and visually stunning that the areas where the movie is lacking tend to go unnoticed on the first couple viewings for most people. Hans Zimmer’s thunderous score paired with the sound design is also astounding just like part one (which is mostly a good thing… although at times it feels a little gimmicky and excessive). 

My complaints are that the story is a little bit confusing, and consequently a little bit boring at times… and most of the characters are stale and uninteresting, except for maybe Stilgar. People talk and interact like such movie characters. They speak to each other solely for the purpose of exposition which is so unlike real people in real life, making it extremely hard for me to connect with them emotionally or care about anything going on. I also just don’t believe Timothee Chalamet as this powerful, intimidating leader that he’s supposed to be… Paul was completely miscast in my opinion.

There are a couple other nitpick annoyances but also a handful of truly great moments. So overall it was a pretty awesome experience in the theater but as I’ve said many times, I really want Denis to make another movie like Prisoners when he’s done with the Dune movies. This soon-to-be epic sci-fi trilogy is shaping up to be quite the jaw-dropping spectacle, but somehow it just doesn’t reach me like most of his other films.

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IMAX 70mm, expanded aspect ratio