'Dune: Part Two' review: A sprawling sandstorm of awesomeness

Twice the spice is twice as nice in "Dune: Part Two," an electrifying sand-blasted epic, and an improvement in every way over 2021's kinda clumsy, kinda wonky "Dune."

Or maybe that first "Dune" was just too much to take in, especially as it was released when we were still very much in a pandemic haze. Also, Frank Herbert's original 1965 novel is such a dense text that it would take an academic to set straight the inner and outer workings of the Houses Atreides, Harkonnen and Corrino, the planets Arrakis and Caladan, the origin of spice, the religious parallels on display and the overall vastness of its undertakings.

Still, "Dune: Part Two" simply moves better than its predecessor, and what director and co-writer Denis Villeneuve does here is synthesize all his varying elements into a coherent package that, while still bursting at the seams, is quite a journey to behold. The experience of "Dune: Part Two" is about strapping on those goggles, jumping on the back of that giant sandworm and going along for the ride.

At nearly three hours, "Dune: Part Two" is still a lot of movie, itself enough for two individual parts. Consider the fact that it opens with Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh) and Shaddam IV (Christopher Walken), who are not seen again on screen for an hour and 15 minutes, or that Josh Brolin's Gurney Halleck pops up at around the two-hour mark after not being seen at all prior. (You're forgiven if you forgot that Brolin is a big part of Part One; Oct. 2021 feels like a lifetime ago.)

You'd need more than two hands to count all the stars in "Dune: Part Two" — there's seven Oscar nominees in the cast, two of them winners — but let's start with Timothée Chalamet, who plays messiah figure Paul Atreides, the is-he-or-isn't-he question of his messiah status providing one of the backbones of the film.

When we last left him, he had traveled to the desert planet Arrakis and was falling for Chani (Zendaya), who is part of the Fremen force of resistance fighters locked in a battle over control of spice, the enriching space dust, the power over which rules all. Paul may or may not be the savior the Fremen have long been waiting for, and as he learns the ways of the desert — including riding monster sandworms like he's big wave surfing — his destiny is becoming hard to deny.

Meanwhile, on a planet that has been sapped of color and lies underneath the kind of Black Hole Sun that Soundgarden once mythologized about, a psychotic young fighter, Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, is coming into his own. He's played by "Elvis'" Austin Butler, and if you didn't believe it then, believe it now: the 32-year-old is the real deal, and he's a terrifying presence under his bald head, shaved eyebrows and tar black teeth. He slits throats without a half a thought and the utter jolt of his menace makes the movie come alive. He's exactly the element the somewhat sleepy first part of "Dune" lacked.

Simplifying things as much as possible — this is, after all, a 900-page book the script is working from — Chalamet and Butler's characters are the good and bad guy pitted against each other, as the fate of the universe more or less hangs in the balance. It's the year 10,191, the spice is hot, and Villeneuve cooks up some indelible scenes and bold imagery in his magnum desert opus, the nerd-out space-geek rock opera you've been waiting for. (Hans Zimmer's bellowing score aims to blow out your eardrums, and he nearly succeeds.)

Across "Dune's" vast universe of characters, we also get Dave Bautista as Feyd-Rautha's seething brother, Javier Bardem as the noble leader of the Fremen, Rebecca Ferguson as Paul's mother, Pugh and Walken as leaders from another planet, and still more characters — played by Charlotte Rampling, Stellan Skarsgård, Léa Seydoux, Anya Taylor-Joy and more — that all carry their own mythologies and could warrant their own chapters in the series. Yes, series: "Dune: Part Two" is set up for more, potentially lots more, and where that seemed like a daunting proposition after the first film it's now welcomed with open arms. If the "Dune" movies can be as smart, sound, faithful and handsome as this, it would be a shame to not keep going.

Villeneuve's touch as a director, since he started going capital-B-Big with 2016's "Arrival," has been blockbusters that are at once magnificent in scope and tethered in execution, mega-movies at human scale, which viewers can still touch and feel themselves inside. He's a stickler for visuals, and "Dune: Part Two" looks fabulous while remaining tactile; there is an army of CGI on display, no question, but it doesn't feel like one of those computer generated messes that are clogging multiplexes. Care has been taken to make it look as real as possible, and you're never taken out of the film by something that seems synthetic. The spell he casts is never broken.

The 28-year-old Chalamet, so warm and lovable in "Wonka," wears his hero status here well: He's a fighter, he's a savior, he's a dreamboat, and he's proving to be one of the most versatile young stars in Hollywood. Butler, meanwhile, nearly steals the show, but the movie is set up for him that way, and he answers the call. Together, the pair make up "Dune's" dynamite duo.

This is quite a world Villeneuve has built, and the patience he practices in his storytelling pays off. It's exquisite big budget filmmaking at the highest level, rich and rewarding, with top-notch visuals, an incredible cast of actors and a story that is at once both grounded and out of this world. Your worm is waiting, jump on and hang on tight.

agraham@detroitnews.com

'Dune: Part Two'

GRADE: B+

Rated PG-13: for sequences of strong violence, some suggestive material and brief strong language

Running time: 166 minutes

In theaters