150 Word Review: 'Dune: Part Two' (2024)
Muad'Dib Superstar
The problem with dividing Frank Herbert's dense, trippy, worm-happy sci-fi tome Dune into two movies is that nothing is as dramatic as the fall of House Atreidies and the betrayal of the poor Duke in part one.
Director Denis Villeneuve's Dune follow-up is as ravishing and detailed as the first, a visual marvel, except this story isn't a tragedy but a messiah's journey with a pinch of revenge. Dune is already political, but Villeneuve doubles down: the plot is thick with Machiavellian magic nuns and space fanatics. This makes for a refreshingly bleak blockbuster.
Timothée Chalamet returns as Paul, the once-and-future-god, and the entire movie's success hinges on his relationship with costar Zendaya's complex desert fighter. They are both strong, charismatic actors. It’s too bad the attractive indigenous peoples of Arrakis are so broadly-drawn, noble and gullible. The bad guys are also one-dimensional, but I appreciate their commitment to evil.
Grief. Friendship. Jazz hands. My debut memoir, Theatre Kids, comes out June, 18th.
Random Ranking
Top 5 Coolest Nouns In Frank Herbert’s 'Dune'
5. Melange
4. Shai-Hulud
3. Sardaukar
2. Duncan Idaho
1. Gom Jabbar
This Scene From David Lynch’s 1984 ‘Dune’ Screwed Me Up In The Head
Denis Villeneuve's Dune movies are massive, modern epics. They’re elegant, and somehow, savage at the same time. Bravo. But David Lynch's 1984 adaptation of Dune, a legendary mega-flop, will always be the one I dream about because a) I was 10-years-old when I saw it and b) it is uniquely alien, the product of one offbeat artist's singular vision making a Fautian bargain with a giant mountain of money.
The movie is a beautiful failure. Meanwhile, I hope Villeneuve gets to continue adapting Herbert's story because Dune Messiah goes in surprising directions.
So the scene. Lynch introduces his interpretation of Dune’s famous, villainous Harkonnen family in a scene that fucked me up when I first saw it over 30 years ago. I was but a boy, but it burned itself into my tender young brain.
I love Lynch for many reasons, but one is his unique ability to seesaw between daydreams and nightmares, innocence and corruption, light and dark. His heroes are pure of heart, but he has a real talent for conjuring terrifying tableaus and hideous characters. Some of the best full-length horror movies I’ve ever seen were a few moments in various David Lynch movies.
In the scene, a young slave boy is murdered by Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, a large, boil-covered monstrosity who wears a harness that allows him to float like a lethal balloon. The sadistic ruler of the ruined planet Geidi Prime takes great pleasure in the killing, which was simple enough to do. The Baron’s slaves all have heart plugs in their chests — pull a tab and pop! blood spurts forth—instant death.
These heart plugs are not in Frank Herbert’s classic novels. They are Lynch’s invention. Mentat Thufir Hawat, a loyal servant of House Atreides, is captured by the Harkonnens and fitted with one. It seems that even the Harkonnens have heart plugs. Lynch never explains why these devices are installed, but it’s clear the Baron likes to surround himself with people he can uncork like bottles of gory champagne.
The heart plug disturbed me, but that scene was full of smaller details that have haunted me ever since.
For instance, as the Baron reveals his plot to destroy House Atreides, he is being attended to by a doctor played by veteran character actor Leonardo Cimino. Cimino isn’t in Dune for very long, but I remember him vividly. His job is to gently prod and poke the Baron’s inflamed cysts while sweetly cooing the following: “You are so beautiful, my Baron. Your skin, love to me. Your diseases lovingly cared for, for all eternity.”
If only I could get that service from my dermatologist.
I know the Baron is a lazy stereotype, a sickly, overweight pervert prone to loud speeches. I blame Herbert for that. But at least Lynch introduces us to his nephews: the aptly named Beast Raban and the beautiful Feyd-Rautha, played by rock star Sting. You see, evil can be blonde and slender and sexy, too.
I will also shout out the legendary Kenneth McMillan’s performance as the Baron. He’s vain and wrathful and insecure and horny for mayhem. Jealous, too. He plays the Baron like a cross between a strung-out drug lord and Santa Claus—just an epic turn as a villain. He's way too human. I was never scared of Darth Vader like I was of Baron Harkonnen. Vader didn’t have a human face. He looked like a pile of vacuum cleaners brought to life. A fearsome antagonist but a bit of a comic book supervillain. He’s a cyborg who wears a cape, after all. But the Baron looked like a regular guy, neighbor, coach, or stepdad. He was a bad guy, but he had layers. Many gross layers.
I'm a huge fan of Stellan Skarsgård’s performance in Villeneuve’s Dune, but his Baron is a one-note fat suit who also enjoys bathing in mystery goo. But he's a distant, almost god-like, presence, scary, sure, but not quite McMillan's unhinged psychopath.
Here are some other moments from that scene that weirded me out as a kid. Remember, I’m not even talking about the whole movie—just a very rich two-minute or so slice of WTF.
The scene is only a few seconds old when we see Raban sip from a sort of juice box from hell — it’s a contraption designed to crush sentient insects that cry weakly in pain when pulverized. I can only assume freshly squeezed bug bodily fluids are a popular and delicious beverage on Geidi Prime. He then throws the one-use device into an open sewer filled with bubbling filth water.
At this point, I'm thinking, “He drank a roach?” And it just gets weirder from there. Before the Baron randomly yanks the heart plug of the slave boy, he levitates skyward towards a pipe leaking a black fluid. What is the mysterious... oil? I have no idea what it is. Blood? Nightmare broth? He sort of bathes in the industrial bile, which also appears to intoxicate him.
Also: everyone is sweating? And Geidi Prime looks like one giant, planetary junkyard belching smoke and fire? There's a dude with his eyes sewed shut, too?
And then there’s what happens right after the Baron drains his poor servant, whose job was to arrange space flowers. Covered in blood, the Baron shouts, “This is what I’ll do to the Duke and his family.” In response, his two nephews smile faintly. Say what you will about the Harkonnens, they always look like they’re having fun. The pair are just, you know, hanging out with their favorite uncle, a greasy pervert maniac. Oh, look, Brad Dourif is here, too. He’s unfazed by all of it.
They don’t even flinch when he kills the slave as if that’s the third boy to die that day. Something about their non-reaction terrified me, and I think it’s a fear all children have: that there are adults who see bad things happen but don’t do anything to stop them from happening. Jesus, what a scene. After it ends, the stakes are sky-high because these psychos love power and hate Duke Leto Atreides and his pug-loving family, including his angel-faced son Paul.
Thinking about it still gives me the heebie-jeebies. Here it is, by the way.
Same fictional universe, way different results. Sometimes the director makes all the difference...
I have watched the original Dune waaayyy too many times, also because it was released during my formative years, and because it had Sting. And just… the dog. What kind of drugs do you need to be on as a director to think, “Patrick Stewart should go into battle carrying a pug.”