Dune: Part Two

As a sequel, it works for the same reasons that make The Empire Strikes Back so many people’s favourite Star Wars film: there’s a darkness, a bleakness, that makes the fist-pumping moments feel all-the-more earned.

As different from the first film as [Ridley Scott's] Alien is to [James Cameron's] Aliens. Same stuff, totally different genre!

There is little character development and it’s not for the literal-minded -- or anyone who has, despite their best efforts, paid some attention.

An epic and spectacular sci-fi allegory with mass appeal.

You know Villeneuve will get the spectacle right. The question is about the human drama… It almost all connected in Part Two.

As in all of these sci-fi epics, there are plenty of scenes in which computer-generated characters drive computer-generated vehicles past computer-generated backdrops but, in "Dune," it feels human, slightly messy and organic.

I can only take so much messiah talk in science fiction, especially when it’s coming from Javier Bardem and Timothée Chalamet, both of whom I generally like, but here all I could think about was that they’d played Desi Arnaz and Bob Dylan.

The massive cast, who could have easily felt like a Shakespeare-on-the-Beach ensemble, have fully bought in and are working overtime to ensure we do too.

I found reasons to avoid it all year long. Finally catching it on the small screen, I was enthralled, mostly thanks to Zendaya distracting from the tiresome Atreides white messiah complex, but also because it finally embraced BIG sci-fi battles

I'm constantly in awe of Villeneuve, and this chapter was the movie we were all waiting for.