The Sterile Spectacle of “Dune: Part Two”

“Dune: Part Two” opens where the previous movie ended, at the conclusion of an especially cutthroat game of thrones. It’s still the year 10191, and the bald-headed baddies of House Harkonnen, having vanquished the nobler, hairier lords of House Atreides, are now running Arrakis and its spice-mining operations. But hope springs anew in the desert, where the hero of the tale—Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), son of the tragically slain Duke Leto Atreides—has gone full T. E. Lawrence, taking refuge with blue-eyed, Bedouin-like desert dwellers known as the Fremen.