DUNE: PART TWO (12A, 166 mins)
Verdict: A sandy spectacular
Dune was bursting out all over Leicester Square at the world premiere a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been to lots of grand openings there down the years, but never to one quite as flamboyant, with quite as much fanfare, causing so much frenzy.
Probably not for 60 years, since the heyday of The Beatles, has that patch of central London resounded with the kind of noisy adoration directed (this time) at the star of the Dune films, 28-year-old Timothee Chalamet. And at least there were four Beatles to share the attention. The young American star gets ‘Chalamania’, as it’s known, all to himself.
The bigger issue, though, was this: would Denis Villeneuve’s epic sequel justify the razzamatazz, not to mention the investment of an entire evening? Dune: Part Two lasts almost three hours. It is even longer than the first film, and that seemed to go on forever.
Happily, it does. The 2021 movie tackled many of the plot complexities that for years fuelled the belief that Frank Herbert’s mighty 1965 science-fiction novel was ‘unfilmable’ (claims not exactly punctured by David Lynch’s 1984 stinker). It was terrific, but exhausting, laboriously introducing us to the inter-planetary empire Herbert imagined, and the various dynasties grappling for power or simply survival.
The sequel has a mercifully more straightforward narrative. On the barren planet Arrakis, with most of his own kinsfolk wiped out, Paul Atreides (Chalamet) prepares to lead the beleaguered, disenfranchised Fremen tribe against his and their mortal enemies, the formidably evil House Harkonnen.
Timothee Chalamet (pictured) reprises his role as Paul Atreides in Dune: Part Two. On the barren planet Arrakis, with most of his own kinsfolk wiped out, Paul prepares to lead the beleaguered, disenfranchised Fremen tribe against the formidably evil House Harkonnen
Paul (Chalamet) who has a truly gripping set-piece duel with the emerging champion of the House of Harkonnen (a shaven-headed Austin Butler)
Zendaya (pictured) stars as Chani who is Paul’s Fremen lover. Paul’s aim is to disrupt spice production, but unlike our own Just Stop Oil brigade, he needs to do more than lie down on a motorway
Ruled by the grotesque Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgard in a wobbly fat suit), to whom they swear allegiance at chilling Nuremberg-style rallies, the Harkonnen owe their political and military supremacy to their control of ‘spice’ — the most valuable commodity in this universe, generally assumed by Dune devotees to be a metaphor for oil.
Paul’s aim is to disrupt spice production, but unlike our own Just Stop Oil brigade, he needs to do more than lie down on a motorway. Anyway, Arrakis doesn’t have motorways. It’s a vast desert, in which he must prove himself to the Fremen by undergoing various challenges, such as sand-surfing behind a worm roughly the size of a superyacht.
Paul has a useful ally in the Fremen chief, Stilgar (Javier Bardem), not to mention a Fremen lover, the smouldering and beautiful Chani (Zendaya).
But there are others who mistrust him. Is he a false prophet or their true ‘mahdi’, their messiah? His modesty clinches it. ‘The Mahdi is too humble to say he is the Mahdi,’ someone says, approvingly, which reminded me strongly of the scene in The Life Of Brian, when Brian’s efforts to convince his followers that he is entirely ordinary backfire, on the basis that only the true messiah would deny his divinity.
I hope Villeneuve had Monty Python in mind, too, because there isn’t otherwise much obvious wit or fun in this film.
But it is supremely stylish, with a piercing Hans Zimmer score and marvellous work by cinematographer Greig Fraser.
Mostly, the action unfolds in subtle shades of brown and beige, as if the set designers were told to restrict themselves to the edges of the Farrow & Ball colour chart. This makes Paul’s eyes look even bluer, a bit like Peter O’Toole’s in Lawrence of Arabia. As Noel Coward famously said at that premiere, if he’d been any prettier it could have been called Florence of Arabia. The same is true of Chalamet. Any more ravishing and they’d have had to call it June.
Rebecca Ferguson (pictured) reprises her role as Paul’s mother – Lady Jessica. There are stars everywhere you look, in a movie that is lavish in every way, and demands to be seen on a big screen
Florence Pugh (pictured) is a newcomer to the franchise. She stars as Princess Irulan, the scheming daughter of the Emperor
Paul (Chalamet) and Chani (Zendaya) share a kiss on the sand dunes of Arrakis. Mostly, the action unfolds in subtle shades of brown and beige, as if the set designers were told to restrict themselves to the edges of the Farrow & Ball colour chart
Paul (Chalamet) walking along the barren landscape of Arrakis. Probably not for 60 years, since the heyday of The Beatles , has Leicester Square resounded with the kind of noisy adoration directed (this time) at the star of the Dune films, 28-year-old Timothee during the Leicester Square premiere
But Paul is a fierce warrior first and foremost, who has a truly gripping set-piece duel with the emerging champion of the Harkonnen (a shaven-headed Austin Butler), and whose muscular beauty pleases Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh), scheming daughter of the Emperor (Christopher Walken).
Butler, Pugh and Walken are all new additions to the cast, incidentally, along with Lea Seydoux and, in a cameo, Anya Taylor-Joy. From the first film, Rebecca Ferguson and Charlotte Rampling also return. There are stars everywhere you look, in a movie that is lavish in every way, and demands to be seen on a big screen.
It’s genuinely spectacular. But take sandwiches.
Red Island (12A, 117 mins)
Verdict: Make believe in Madagascar
This engagingly quirky (and visually stunning) French-language drama is set on a French air force base in Madagascar in the early 1970s, where the former colonisers continue to assert their control over the now-independent.
Writer-director Robin Campillo immerses us in the daily life of one family: the moody airman father, his flighty wife, their marital strains and those of their friends.
But the main focus is on their impossibly cute eight-year-old son Thomas (Charlie Vauselle), whose superhero fantasies are brought to life in oddly beguiling little interludes as he seeks refuge from the weird world of grown-ups.
Red Island is in cinemas now, and also on Curzon Home Cinema.