Is “Dune: Part Two” the best movie of 2024?

“Dune: Part Two” is now available to stream online while it edges closer to the end of its strong theater run. As its rather obvious title would suggest, it is the sequel to 2021’s “Dune” and continues the adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel of the same name. After watching the first movie in an IMAX theater, “Dune: Part Two” was probably the movie I was looking forward to the most on 2024 slate. Between the release of the two films, I started reading the original novel, but stopped where the first movie had ended, not wanting to spoil anything for “Part Two.”

That, as it turned out, was a very good idea. “Dune: Part 2” is every bit as cinematic and impressive as its predecessor while bringing even greater stakes and digging into the main portion of the narrative. It benefits greatly from all of the setup done in the prior film, jumping immediately into Paul Atreides’s journey to ally himself with the Fremen and their battles with the rival Harkonnens. Every aspect of the movie, from its plot and themes to its cinematography, score, and scale oozes with a sense of the epic.

Denis Villeneuve continues to be one of my favorite directors as he follows up his first Dune film with many of the same sensibilities that made the first, and many of his other science fiction films like “Blade Runner: 2049” and “Arrival,” great. Impressive cinematography headed by Greig Fraser is paired with CGI that has a more tactile feel to it than what you might see in modern blockbutserfilms. The scenes on the Harkonnen homeworld and Paul’s trial with the worm are particularly stark and vivid, even within a movie that looks as good as this one does.

While Villeneuve’s pace may be too ponderous for some, I usually find it to be exactly right, giving scenes enough time to breath by not overburdening them with flippant dialogue or rushing to the next action set piece. While “Dune: Part Two” weighs in at a hefty two hours and 46 minutes, there was never a moment that I was not engrossed with whatever was on screen, though this is the primary hang up I could see with most people.

“Dune Part: Two” continues to utilize the sheer size of many of the vehicles, buildings, starships and of course, the worms, to create a sense of scale that I don’t know if I have really seen established and used so effectively in any other film. The human characters are minuscule in comparison to these mighty contraptions and creatures, perfectly encapsulating a sense that all people are mere specks in the overall vastness that is both the physical and political aspects of this galactic civilization. That is part of the theme of “Dune,” that the political machinations driving the conflict forward are larger and more complicated than any one person can control, despite numerous characters’ attempts to do so.

The acting in the film is also top notch, with Timothée Chalamet bringing additional layers to his performance as the lead while Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, and Stellan Skarsgård all bring solid work to the table. Particularly memorable for myself were Austin Butler’s disturbing Feyd-Rautha and Javier Bardem’s Stilgar, whose constant hyping up of Paul as the chosen one brought some humor in an otherwise serious affair.

The score by Hans Zimmer brings all of these elements together and elevates them to the next level. While the theme that highlights the most hyped scenes will certainly be the most noticeable, with its vocal aspects equal parts alien and grand, the music as a whole truly solidifies the feeling that you are watching an epic unfold.

That is what “Dune: Part Two” does best, what I enjoy the most about it; it has a feeling of grandeur and legend about it. It brings the sense of an overwhelming large and somewhat unfathomable galaxy from Frank Herbert’s book to life, harnessing all of the best storytelling features the medium of film has to enhance Herbert’s tale. While there are some things I could nitpick on, overall “Dune: Part Two” more than met my expectations If you saw the first film and liked it and have yet to catch the second, I would highly recommend watching it in a theater if you can!

A C ertain Point of V iew