Deborah Ross

All I kept thinking was how the sand must get everywhere: Dune – Part Two reviewed

This sequel contains little character development and is hardly suspenseful

Dune’s set pieces are swaggeringly spectacular – but hardly suspenseful. © 2023 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved. Photo: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures 
issue 02 March 2024

Dune: Part Two is not a sequel but a continuation of Dune, so picks up exactly at the point you’d started to wonder if it would ever end. All I can remember from the first film is sand, sand, so much sand, and it must get everywhere, and into your sandwiches. But it is set in a massive desert so it goes without saying there would be a lot of sand. I don’t blame the sand especially.

There are all sorts of allegories at play; I’m not paid enough to think about them

Directed by Denis Villeneuve and based on the series of books by Frank Herbert, this second outing has already been hailed as ‘thrilling’, ‘breathtaking’ and ‘a masterpiece’ by those who are too easily carried away and said the same of the Marvel films – although I’m glad to say they are coming round to my way of thinking. To summarise where we were when we were praying for the last film to end: we were on the inhospitable desert planet of Arrakis which is famed for its rare and extremely valuable resource, ‘spice’.

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