Dune: Part Two review – audacious, intimate, and menacing like no other blockbuster in existence

There are moments in Dune: Part Two that feel so audacious, they play out as if they were already etched onto the cinematic canon. A lone figure stands astride a mountainous worm as it pummels through the sand like Moses parting the Red Sea. A man is trapped by a psychic seduction, its effects splintering across the screen in what could only be described as an indoor thunderstorm. Gladiatorial combat takes place on a planet with an environment so inhospitable, its colours so drained, that it looks almost like a photographic negative.

, like its predecessor, is chose to adapt half of Frank Herbert’s foundational sci-fi novel, with no guarantee a sequel would ever be made. Despite its release at the height of the pandemic, with a same-day launch on streaming services, .