Dune: Part Two

So there’s fanatical space Arabs out there. Well, that’s just great. Hopefully any excesses will be confined to moviedom. It is the overriding impression one gets watching this movie, just how much the tale is filled with Middle Eastern vibes. That’s not something you usually get in your sci-fi epics, but it does lead one to contemplate how tableaux about empires and power and war are really about death, destruction and misery. And in this outing, you don’t even get to the end of the conflict—all this is just a prelude to the third entry, which presumably will present us with one hell of a climax. As it is, there’s plenty of action and intrigue to go around in this installment, more than enough dazzle to keep you entertained—visually, at least, if not in terms of the story—throughout the movie’s rather long (two and a half hour) running time. Oh, and don’t worry so much about how long it’s been since you saw the first one; even if you never laid eyes on the first flick, you can follow along with what’s going on easily enough. In sum, it’s great to look at, tells a good story—at least the middle part of it—and features a slew of familiar faces doing good work all around. Not much more you can ask from a better than average space opera.