When Denis Villeneuve's Dune was released in October 2021 into some cinemas around the world - plenty were still closed thank to our mate COVID - it found a very receptive audience but gave them a case of enjoymentus interruptus.
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That's because despite sitting through over three hours of action, it felt like Villeneuve had only gotten us through a third of Frank Herbert's novel and with the world falling apart, plenty wondered if there would ever be a sense of completion to that experience.
I'm certainly going back for a second or third viewing on the big screen.
Well here we are just over three years later and Villeneuve delivers not only a conclusion to this story, but a sci-fi fantasy film of such magnitude and quality that the nerds will be debating for years to come whether it in fact matches or surpasses The Empire Strikes Back in their "best sequel" and "best sci-fi" discussions.
Is that a big call? Is that hyperbole? Time will tell and I'm certainly going back for a second or third viewing on the big screen to reinforce my initial thoughts that this film is a chef's kiss piece of filmmaking and storytelling.
In Dune (it wasn't yet called Part One) we met two generations of the royal family Artreides, governors of the grim sand desert planet called Arrakis, the only source of the galaxy's most coveted and lucrative resource called "spice".
There's a rival royal family, the Harkonnens, led by the corpulent and menacing Baron (Stellan Skarsgard) just waiting in the wings to bump off the Artreides leadership and take over the lucrative spice mining, and along with it the most-favoured-nation status with the galactic Emperor (Christopher Walken), and by the end of the first film they've done just that.
As this film opens, the young heir to house Artreides Paul (Timothee Chalamet) and his mother Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) are living in hiding with the planet's indigenous Fremen people.
Paul is in love with and being shown the ways of the desert people and their fighting techniques by Chani (Zendaya), but the leader of her sect Stilgar (Javier Bardem) sees Paul as the prophesied figure come to free their people and planet.
There's a heap more plot but I'll leave it there - Herbert's novel was almost impenetrable (to me, anyways) with plot and characters.
The screenplay from Denis Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts strips away much complication while still packing in what feels like six seasons of Game of Thrones' political intrigue.
There is so much packed in that some characters get only fleeting moments which probably wouldn't be as noticeable if it weren't for performers the calibre of Florence Pugh and Anya Taylor-Joy having their screen time measured in seconds.
But they also allow for character development for many others, particularly the four-way dynamic between Paul and his mother, Chani and Stilgar as Paul grows into his prophesied role but wants to hold on to these personal connections.
The film gives us some spectacular moments, wonderfully choreographed fight scenes, painterly framing and composition by Villeneuve, a crashing score from composter Hans Zimmer, and despite a three-hour runtime, I have to say I did not feel time lag for even one second.
As for Timothee Chalamet, it is hard to believe this is the same gamine young man who sang so beautifully in Wonka, he's so commanding and masculine while also balletic in his movements in the desert landscapes and his fight scenes.
He's probably as unlikely an action film lead as Keanu Reeve's casting must have felt to many in the first Matrix film.
The film gives a sense of resolution, yet with five Herbert books that followed on from his 1965 novel, it gives fans hope that we might see more of these characters.
