★★★★☆

I watched Dune Part 2 with my family on March 3 at the Edina Theater. We originally wanted to see it on IMAX, but the tickets at the Southdale IMAX theater showings were sold out. Although I liked the first movie better, the second didn’t disappoint. I would definitely recommend watching Dune Part 1 before seeing Dune 2 because, as typically occurs with movies in series, the first movie is vital to understanding the world and character motivations.

Dune Part 2 follows Paul Atreides as he navigates the desert and his relationship with the people living there. It deals with themes of religion, politics, power, and ambition as well as offers commentary on the white savior trope in the media. The movie dealt with these themes well without hitting the viewer over the head with them. The story was good and compelling, and of course, the editing and sound design were amazing as well. I liked how they showed Paul’s progression as a character and his arc in the story. As a movie that almost reaches 3 hours of run time, I would say that the story dragged in a few parts, and I found myself getting bored at times, but it didn’t take long for Dune to pull me back in.

In terms of adaptation, my dad (who has read most of the books in the series) says that the movie was pretty faithful to the original story and its themes, although he felt they could’ve explained some of the world-building a bit better. I was able to follow the storyline and the character’s reasoning decently well, but my brother and mom had a bit of trouble with some aspects of the story. My biggest question throughout the movie was how the Fremen get off the sandworms once they start riding them, but overall it was a minor pet peeve compared to my enjoyment of the movie as a whole (plus my dad explained it to me after the movie). One of my other pet peeves that I’ve seen appearing in more movies as a whole recently is that a lot of characters tend to mumble or their words get covered up by other sounds, and they don’t provide subtitles. Dune, unfortunately, seems to have fallen victim to this trend as well. Overall, Dune Part 2 is a great sequel to Dune Part 1, and most of my criticisms are relatively minor.

I encourage people to watch these movies and I’m eagerly looking forward to the next parts of the series.