My Facebook news page is filled with article s about dune 2. Which to me indicates that it totally sucks.

I know someone who called it a masterpiece.
They really liked the first one and thought this was even better.
Keeping my fingers crossed for my matinee/senior discounted/IMAX screening on Wednesday.

the first one really sucked so i'll wait.

kirok1 wrote on Mar 4^th, 2024 at 4:16pm:

the first one really sucked so i'll wait.

Ha! I loved it. Have watched it 3 or 4 times. To each their own, I suppose.

a neighbor friend told me his friends said they saw it on imax.

I've now seen it. It doesnt suck.

Still mulling it over. It's too long, but decent

L.A. Connection wrote on Mar 13^th, 2024 at 5:50pm:

I've now seen it. It doesnt suck.

     Oh yes it does!
     It sucks harder than one of those digital sand worms, which -- I feel I have to point out -- seem to function as an Arrakis Uber service.  One wonders how they get all those people on, or, more interestingly, off.  What, do they cry, 'Oh, look!  A sand worm parking space!', pull over, & disembark?  WTF, folks?
     The movie is awful.  AWFUL.  Miserably shot -- does no one understand EV anymore? -- miscast, overlong, poorly-written, eye-rollingly cliched, & every third shot is a CU of Zendaya looking concerned, or sad, or sadly concerned.  Just crap.
     And Ive seen it before.  I kept expecting the [surprisingly] ethnically mixed Fremen to start shouting "Aurence! Aurence!" as Paul walked triumphantly along a train.
     I would have never believed that anything could come along to make the David Lynch horror look good by comparison, but this one almost succeeds in doing so.
     Junk.

wow. if it's THAT bad i might go see it.

My full review:

DUNE PART TWO (2024) Theaters.
When DUNE Part One debuted, I gave it a grade of 'Incomplete'. It was decent, well-mounted, but there wasn't enough that was definitive to give it final marks. With Part Two, Director Denis Villenueve earns a solid passing grade.

After a brief prologue, which introduces Florence Pugh as Princess Irulan (this also functions as a tidy recap), the new entry picks up with Paul Atreidies (Timothee Chalamet) and his mother Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) who have joined forces with Chani (Zendaya), Stilgar (Javier Bardem) and the Freman.

Villenueve and Jon Spaiht's script improves on the pacing of the original, managing to weave in new plot developments and important new characters such as the Emperor (Christopher Walker) and the menacing nephew Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler) of Baron Harkonnen (a returning Stellan Skarsgard) . The screenplay is still burdened with much exposition and some of the dialogue rings flat. The cast does their best with Butler and Pugh making the strongest impressions of the newcommers. Ferguson is excellent once again. Chalamet is better than in the first half, and grows into the role. Unfortunately, Bardem and Walken are saddled with lesser material.

As a combined film, DUNE is an impressive achievement on a grand scale. Some of the Greig Fraser's cinematography is a bit too murky at times, but otherwise quite solid. The production design, sound, costumes, VFX, Zimmer's score - all set a high standard.

For hard SF fans, the fantasy elements may create a certain distance with their amorphous and seemingly flexible rules. Unless one is truly steeped in Frank Herbert's mythos, the details often create more confusion than cohesion; Not to mention that the 'ending' truly isn't -- as there are five more original books to go. For all the criticism the 1984 David Lynch version gets, he did manage to distill it into a coherent enough film that runs less than two and a half hours. The collective Dune here runs over five. Obviously, there are many more details explored, but there are times where it hinders the overall dramatic rhythm.

All that noted, Villeneuve can hold his head up high. His two-parter is a good attempt at adapting a dense series of novels which have gained their own mythic status. If there are to be more Dune filmed adaptations, Villenueve can walk away proud of his accomplishment.

caleb?

kirok1 wrote on Mar 25^th, 2024 at 6:38pm:

caleb?

I really liked it, but it wasn't a perfect film (unlike the one of the director's earlier efforts, Arrival, which is pretty close to perfect).
I watched D1 again in preparation for D2, and it does feel like one flowing story, and Denis Villeneuve continues to deliver beautiful images occupied by characters I mostly care about.
Having said that I do think D2 could have trimmed some time. And I was able to fill in some narrative short comings with what I already knew about the Dune story from almost reading the book (tried twice, never finished), and watching the Lynch, Smithee, and BBC versions, and to some extent the brilliant documentary "Jodorowsky's Dune", but without that prior knowledge I could see the film occasionally getting confusing.
I do think the new films have dropped the ball by failing to explore/explain the importance of Spice, and how it relates to space travel and the Guild Navigators. This element lends weight to the battle for control of Arrakis that might be missing a little. And is also really freakin' cool.
Then there's the whole political debate about the choice to exclude the word Jihad from the script, and a fine tuned dissection of the allegorical commentary on Mideast oil and European colonization of oil producing countries that I find interesting, but don't know enough about to discuss intelligently.
Overall I give it a solid 8 out 10 Sand Worms.

i will be reporting here live from the west boylston discount cinema (6 bucks) matinee at 1:15 on april 1 to give a running commentary on dune2.

shooting for possibly tomorrow 1 o'clock

soon. i swear.

i missed it at the local discount theater. i'll get the dvd at redbox