Dune: Part Two – the next Star Wars?

It's only February and already the movie event of the year is here, with early viewings of "Dune: Part Two" generating impressive reviews.

Critics "truly love" the follow-up to 2021's "Dune", starring Timothée Chalamet, said Screen Rant, "to the point where comparisons to 'Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back' are already being made". Even director Christopher Nolan likened the two, which is "just about the greatest endorsement the film could ever receive".

Chalamet continues the second edition as Paul, the new patriarch of House Atreides, after the "great feudal dynasty was nearly wiped out by their grotesque rivals" in the first instalment, said Den of Geek. "Fully embracing a chic messiah complex", Paul is united with Chani (Zendaya) and begins a journey of revenge against those who destroyed his family.

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"Despite existing in a tomorrow where interstellar travel is possible", the film embraces the fact that the universe created in the original 1965 sci-fi novel by Frank Herbert was "married to the old ways", said the site, "be it through feudal fiefdoms or how folks are still fighting, dying, and drilling for special resources to make their vehicles go vroom".

Beware, though, this world is as bleak as it gets, said Den of Geek. "It's a place one would never want to be, and yet you do not want to leave."

Denis Villeneuve's adaptation works for the same reasons that "The Empire Strikes Back" did, said Time Out. "There's a darkness, a bleakness, that makes the fist-pumping moments feel all-the-more earned." There is also a sense, said the website, "that the good guys may not win out".

Not everyone agrees with the comparison. Tom Jorgensen at IGN said that "Dune: Part Two" had more in common with Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, "films which transposed a thorny, dense literary mythology into an accessible, groundbreaking spectacle which remains beloved today".

In that respect, this sequel's "considerable expansion of the story's scope and splendour positions the movie as a 'Two Towers' for the 2020s".

Comic Book Resources argued that Villeneuve had "gone beyond his influences to create a hefty piece of sci-fi world-building", and it is a "bold accomplishment".

"With all of the complexities and cliffhangers lingering in the air, Dune is more than just a repository for melange harvesting."