"Dune: Part 2" (2024), Denis Villeneuve

Villeneuve is the go-to director for the orphaned comic-book nerds escaping the Marvel Titanic ship.  Dune (part 2!) is composed of endless sands mixed with close-ups of angry people and Nolan womps. It's long, it's badly edited and it's boring. There's no interesting esthetics, no cinema to speak of. Even the CGI is tired. The Empire and other sections of "Foundation" had similar themes and did it a lot better.  Part of the fault lies in Herbert's vision of Jihad and Saviours, part on Villeneuve's approach to filmmaking, at best suitable for "Arrival", his moody Doctor Who-ish film episode. The nerds scream for recognition, and this comes in the form of seriousness. American Cinema is in the agonal respiration phase, a somber period where every character must pensively look at the horizon while the bass drowns any thought. Only feeling is allowed, a longing for a past that is not coming back. The magic is gone, colors are muted, the fire is dying ember, just the red dust remains.Villeneuve is the go-to director for the orphaned comic-book nerds escaping the Marvel Titanic ship.  Dune (part 2!) is composed of endless sands mixed with close-ups of angry people and Nolan womps. It's long, it's badly edited and it's boring. There's no interesting esthetics, no cinema to speak of. Even the CGI is tired. The Empire and other sections of "Foundation" had similar themes and did it a lot better.  Part of the fault lies in Herbert's vision of Jihad and Saviours, part on Villeneuve's approach to filmmaking, at best suitable for "Arrival", his moody Doctor Who-ish film episode. The nerds scream for recognition, and this comes in the form of seriousness. American Cinema is in the agonal respiration phase, a somber period where every character must pensively look at the horizon while the bass drowns any thought. Only feeling is allowed, a longing for a past that is not coming back. The magic is gone, colors are muted, the fire is dying ember, just the red dust remains.