Film Review: DUNE: PART TWO (2024) – A Good Movie that’s Impressive at Times; Missing Greatness through Wasted Opportunities

Harkonnen Soldiers are the New Stormtroopers

The Harkonnen’s hunting the Fremen at the beginning of the film and using suspensors to get away from a possibly approaching worm would be a good move, if not for the human combatants in their immediate vicinity. Because of the potential threat of a worm, the Harkonnens place themselves in a kill box with no cover for 360 degrees in broad daylight.

No trained soldier would ever do this.

It seems screenwriters Denis Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts never read or watched Lone Survivor (or spoke to any active or retired soldier about live combat and how to use your environment to your advantage, e.g., using it as a shield or blending into it to camouflage yourself). When the black-clad Harkonnen “soldiers” start to get picked off by Fremen gun fire, the viewer may think, “You’re God-damn right. You’re standing up in a live combat zone with no cover. What do you expect is going to happen to you?” It’s literally shooting fish in a barrel. It’s asinine.

At its outset, it’s a cool scene with great visuals until the scene evolves and viewer thinks about it: these are grown men, veteran soldiers (an assumption), acting like greenhorns who haven’t been taught anything, just placed in armor and sent out. Maybe they are untrained newbies. Maybe that explains why they are nincompoops and needlessly expose themselves to enemy fire.

Good heroes need good villains to truly shine. When your enemy are undisciplined goofballs, that effect, that desired result, never comes into existence.

The Major and Minor Moments in Battles

The CGI for the worms in Dune: Part Two is excellent; from Paul Atriedes’ first worm ride to the Fremen using the worms as combat vehicles in the third act of the film (with flags flapping and soldiers kneeling), the worms’ look, feel, and granular tactility are all top-notch and exhilarating to behold.

Shishakli, on her knees after the destruction of Sietch Tabr and burned alive off-screen by Feyd, is a quiet moment in the film that speaks loudly, only needing dialogue in one direction. The Fremen poise under duress is on full display as Shishakli accepts her flame fate in silence. For such a strong character moment, it is a shame the viewer is not given more scenes with her in the film so that her loss is felt and not just witnessed.

The Fremen that hangs onto Glossu “Beast” Rabban (Dave Bautista)’s ornithopter after an ill-conceived and ill-executed raid is the capstone of that scene and a visual example of how undaunted Fremen are, even when thrown into a harrowing situation. All the Fremen warrior sees is Rabban—a Harkonnen, a target to be vanquished, even when lifted hundreds of feet off the ground and hanging on for dear life. It is an impressive and fanatical example of tenacity.