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Movie Review: The Odyssey

Max Weiss — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 15:51:51 +0000

There’s a reason why Christopher Nolan keeps suggesting that you see his The Odyssey on the largest screen possible—ideally, in IMAX. If nothing else, the film is a spectacle—a technical triumph that brings all the magic, bloodshed, and mythology of Homer’s epic to life.

Ever wondered what it was like inside the Trojan Horse? Wonder no more. Ever asked yourself what it felt like for the soldiers of Ithaca to take on a Cyclops? It was apparently terrifying (and a little sad). We see it all—the depths of Hades, the deadly allure of the Sirens, and, in one remarkable scene, the witch Circe (Samantha Morton) turning Odysseus’ army into a pack of grunting hogs.

We have the technology. And we also have a master of action who can choreograph all of these elaborate set pieces with intensity, clarity, and awe.

I confess I’ve never read The Odyssey (I did my thesis on James Joyce’s Ulysses, if that counts (it doesn’t)). But we’ve all learned the story through cultural osmosis. We know one of its major themes is a primal desire for home, which happens to be an obsession in many Nolan films—from Interstellar to Inception to Dunkirk. Here, Nolan also grapples with the Golden Rule—in the film it’s called Zeus’ Law. The idea is to be kind to strangers, lest they be gods in disguise.

But are the gods even real? In the film, they are depicted as real—although Athena (Zendaya) only comes to Odysseus (Matt Damon) as an apparition. But the Cyclops—massive, with a one enormous eye and a nose twisted to its side to make him look like a giant Picasso painting—is real. As is the righteous magic of Circe, the omniscience of the denizens of the underworld (here called Hades), the power of goddesses, and so on.

But Nolan also leaves room for the idea that gods were conjured to explain the horrors and mysteries of nature. When Odysseus’ ship is wracked with deadly storms and waves, his crew believes it’s because he has angered Poseidon. There’s an angry god to explain every natural disaster, every tragedy that befalls man.

So, the plot: Odysseus leads an army into Troy, knowing the mission is possibly futile, if not doomed completely. Meanwhile, his devoted wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway), waits for him for 20 years, fending off dozens of would-be suitors, who stay in her castle like it’s a gilded Holiday Inn. Odysseus’ son, Telemachus (Tom Holland), was just a baby when Odysseus left for war—he doesn’t know his father, but he idolizes him all the same. He hears wonderful stories of Odysseus’ decency, bravery, and honor, from not just his mother, but from his father’s loyal servant, the now blind and enfeebled Eumaeus (John Leguizamo). Like many blind men of mythology, Eumaeus can “see” what other men can’t. There is also Odysseus’ bedraggled, loyal hunting dog, half dead, waiting for his master to come home. (Nolan is laying it on a little thick here, but who am I to grumble over a cute dog.)

Of the would-be suitors, the most attractive—and malevolent—is Antinous (Robert Pattinson), who sees young Telemachus as a threat to the throne and plots to kill him.

The film toggles back and forth between life with devoted Penelope and the many trials of Odysseus and his crew. Penelope insists she will pick a suitor once she finishes the funeral shroud she has been weaving for years. However, every night, she unravels the work of that day. When he’s old enough, Telemachus travels to Sparta to learn something—anything—about the whereabouts of his father, a trip that will imperil both him and his mother.

By now, the war is essentially over. Odysseus is presumed dead, but in fact, has been a captive, of sorts, of the goddess Calypso (Charlize Theron), who healed his wounds and has been feeding him lotus flower to cloud his memory for seven long years.

Is it spoiler to say that Odysseus eventually makes his way home? (This is less a spoiler alert and more of a “know your classic literature” alert.) He disguises himself as a beggar—and we get a little Good Will Hunting action. Never underestimate Matt Damon, especially if you think he’s beneath you.

Damon, I should say, is an excellent Odysseus. The 55-year-old actor got jacked for the role and he seems powerful, even as an old man with a white beard wandering around in a tattered toga on Calypso’s island. Importantly, he manages to convey the wisdom, kindness, and practicality of Odysseus. Like all great leaders, he must make difficult choices. Sometimes a few men need to be sacrificed to save the rest.

Most of the acting is solid, with Hathaway able to do some enjoyable scenery chomping as Penelope, ever imperious and regal but nearly driven mad with grief. In their few scenes together, she and the mustache-twirling Pattinson get to fight over who can devour the scenery more greedily. Go off, you two. Holland is fine as Telemachus—he brings an earnestness and sturdy physicality to the role. He’s likeable, as ever, but just not that interesting? (Or maybe that’s just compared to the histrionics of Hathaway and Pattinson.)

Other standouts in the cast include Leguizamo, Morton—the film really comes to life once her Circe appears—and Himesh Patel as Odysseus’ faithful (to a point) deputy.

Again, I’m not able to point out discrepancies between the film and the original text, but there is one element to Nolan’s Odyssey that feels very modern, very much him: Odysseus’ guilt over the destruction of Troy, which mirrors Oppenheimer’s guilt when he sees what his atom bomb has wrought. I’m not sure Odysseus was that in touch with his feelings back in 1200 BCE.

Still, it’s Nolan’s party and he can do what he wants with it. He’s succeeded in many ways—bringing a classic epic poem to life, modernizing it, but certainly not in a thoughtless way, and utilizing the full range of his prodigious cinematic toolkit. Did I love it? Not quite. I prefer more a little more character development and a little less spectacle. But it’s going to be a lot of people’s favorite film (okay, mostly dudes). And yeah, it’s more than good enough to earn that honor.

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Movie Review: The Drama

Max Weiss — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 20:31:32 +0000

The Drama is a psychological horror film masquerading as a romcom. From the jump, something feels a little off about the “meet-cute.” At a coffee shop, Charlie (Robert Pattinson) sees Emma (Zendaya) reading a novel (The Damage by Harper Ellison, a truly excellent fake title and author). Taken with her, he does a quick google search of the book and approaches her.

“I love that book,” he says.

She ignores him. All of a sudden, he feels like all eyes in the coffee shop are on him, judging him for this hapless pick-up attempt. Time seems to freeze.

Finally, she removes her single earbud and looks at him. She explains that she’s deaf in one ear and had no idea he was even talking to her. They decide to have a do-over, a cute practice that is repeated throughout their romance. He sits back down and tries again.

Later, over dinner, he continues the ruse when she asks him for his thoughts on the ending of the novel.

“Is she dead?” Emma asks.

“Um, yeah, I think she’s dead,” Charlie says.

“And what about the mirrors?”

“Uh…the mirrors?…I think they’re, um, metaphors,” he sputters.

She stares at him, quizzically, until he finally comes clean: He hasn’t read the book. He just wanted to talk to her.

That lie, while seemingly innocent, was actually pretty dark: He wooed her under false pretenses, pretending to be something he wasn’t. Not necessarily a dealbreaker, but a red flag to be sure. What else would he lie about to get his way?

But here’s the thing: This film isn’t actually about Emma’s safety or whether or not Charlie can be trusted. It’s the opposite. You see, Charlie has told a tiny lie. Emma has been hiding a whopper.

IF YOU DON’T WANT TO BE SPOILED COME BACK AND READ THE REST OF THE REVIEW AFTER YOU’VE SEEN THE FILM!

Okay, so Emma and Charlie get engaged. They’re in love—and they’re happily planning their wedding. Over a tasting dinner of mushroom risotto and too much wine with Charlie’s best man, Mike (Mamoudou Athie) and his wife, Emma’s maid of honor, Rachel (Alana Haim), they play an ill-advised game of “What is the worst thing you’ve ever done?” (I can’t emphasis enough how much you should never play this game.)

They go around the table, admitting some genuinely messed up things, until they get to Emma, who is quite drunk at this point.

“I planned a school shooting,” she says.

Charlie laughs nervously.

Then, with mounting horror, everyone around the table realizes she’s serious.

“I didn’t do it, of course,” Emma says quickly. But the damage has been done.

It’s Rachel, played with exquisite haughtiness by Haim, who storms away in disgust. As far as she’s concerned, Emma is canceled. The wedding is obviously off. And a freaked out Mike essentially agrees with her.

It’s up to Charlie to navigate his conflicting emotions. In the wedding speech he was writing, he extols Emma’s unimpeachable character, but now he thinks, does he ever know her? (There’s a wonderful scene where he begins editing out words like “kindness” and “empathy” in the speech.) He can’t reconcile the woman he thinks he is marrying with a person who would plan such an evil act.

So yes, The Drama is about the impossibility of really knowing someone. And I like the idea of a romcom morphing into a kind of “hell is other people” horror film.

But something about this film really put me off. It’s reminiscent of Tár, a film I actually loved that nonetheless had one glaring flaw. As we know, most so-called “geniuses” who get away with sexual predation are men, but Tár dared to ask the question: What if it was a woman? Flipping that paradigm seemed like provocativeness for its own sake.

It’s worse with The Drama, mostly because it’s not nearly the film Tár is. The majority of school shooters are boys. More specifically, white boys. Why on earth have a movie about a Black woman who considered such violence?

The answer is simple: It’s to center Charlie’s dilemma, his pain, his confusion. I knew without even checking that the film had been written by a man, writer/director Kristopher Borgli (Dream Scenario). The film is entirely from Charlie’s perspective as he drives himself slightly mad with uncertainty.

Pattinson, who burst on the scene playing a heartthrob vampire, has spent the rest of his career trying to undo that fact. He specializes in men on the verge of a nervous breakdown—I feel like I’ve almost never seen him in a film where he doesn’t twitch and sweat—so this is right in his wheelhouse. He’s good at playing Charlie’s increased agitation. Should he go through with the wedding or not?

The ever-captivating Zendaya has the trickier part because her inner life is intentionally opaque—that’s part of the puzzle of the film. We’re supposed to at least entertain the notion that Emma could actually be psychopath, not just a woman who had a troubled adolescence who briefly lost her way.

Zendaya does the best she can with this cryptic character, but I found the whole premise of The Drama off-putting.

Yes, the otherness of our lovers is rich material to mine. But the shock value of this film overpowered its ideas. (It’s like that old fashion insult: “You’re not wearing the jacket. The jacket is wearing you.”) By embracing an outlier and taking the premise to such an extreme, the film lost its grip—both on reality and my interest.

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My Favorite Films of 2024 Were Empathy Machines

Max Weiss — Fri, 27 Dec 2024 17:40:48 +0000

Why do film critics even bother writing introductions to their lists of the best films of the year? We all know the truth—everyone skips the intro (where we make profound statements about the State of Film Now) and goes straight to the list. So without further ado…

1. Anora

Pretty Woman but make it indie. A sex worker gets swept off her feet by the happy-go-lucky son of a Russian oligarch. Briefly, we allow ourselves to get carried away by their silly and sexy romance. Then the parents intervene, a group of (only semi-competent) Russian gangsters enter the scene, the Russian Prince Charming turns out to be a bit of a dud, and we find out just how feisty our heroine really is. Directed by Sean Baker, the Shakespeare of sex workers, reprobates, and loveable losers, and featuring a star-making turn by Mikey Madison in the title role.

2. Conclave

Director Edward Berger brings us the most audaciously entertaining film of the year. The pope dies and the cardinals are placed in seclusion—a conclave—to select their new leader. Egos run amok, battle lines are drawn, and everyone’s ambition rises to the surface. Ralph Fiennes is impeccable, as usual, as the cardinal in charge of the whole thing—trying to separate the righteous from the power-hungry. The twist at the end is satisfying, if a bit ridiculous. Pay close attention to the nuns.

3. Thelma

When 93-year-old Thelma (June Squibb, perfection) gets tricked by scammers, she takes matters into her own hands, inspired by her restless spirit and her love of Mission Impossible films. Her reluctant partner in crime is Ben (the late Richard Roundtree, wonderful), who tags along and tries to quell her more dangerous impulses. Meanwhile, her frantic family—including her slightly dim and doting grandson, Daniel (Fred Hechinger)—chases after her. But she doesn’t want to be rescued, she’s having the time of her life. And so are we.

4. A Real Pain

Ostensibly a film about a pair of cousins (Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin) traveling to Poland to see the hometown of their grandmother who survived the Holocaust, Eisenberg’s film is actually about how we manage to live in a world full of suffering. Most of us compartmentalize, adapt, deny. But what if someone feels everything a little too deeply? That’s Culkin’s Benji. His outsized emotions manage to be the perfect foil to Eisenberg’s well-tempered repression. We watch the cousins fumble toward a mutual understanding and see Benji interact with the world—in turns annoying, delighting, and unsettling everyone he encounters.

5. A Different Man

Edward (Sebastian Stan) has Proteus syndrome, aka Elephant Man’s disease, and lives a quiet life of desperation. His beautiful new neighbor (Renate Reinsve) shows him kindness and he briefly misunderstands her intentions. Her rejection sends him spiraling—eventually to a doctor who claims to have a cure. He emerges a new man, a handsome one, who actually begins a tentative romance with the neighbor. But his world—and worldview—are disrupted when another man (Adam Pearson) with the exact same affliction arrives on the scene. This man has a joie de vivre—he charms the world with his friendliness and openness; he’s a lesson about embracing life in the form of a doppelganger. This quirky, smart, and slightly off-kilter film from Aaron Schmiberg is reminiscent of the early collaborations between Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman.

6. Emilia Pérez

Like nothing you’ve ever seen. A Mexican drug lord (enthralling Karla Sofia Gascon, in a dual role) recruits an overworked and underpaid lawyer (Zoe Saldana, never better) to arrange for him to get a sex change and start a new life. Once she has the surgery, she becomes a formidable but nurturing philanthropist who helps people find loved ones who died in the drug wars. But she pines for her two children so arranges to have them come live with her, along with her “widowed” wife (Selena Gomez), under the pretense that she’s the drug kingpin’s long lost sister. How long can she keep this charade up? Did I mention that Jacques Audiard’s film is a rock opera? I loved every cockamamie second of it.

7. The Beast

A sci-fi love story, of sorts, with three distinct chapters. In the framing device, set in the future, a woman named Gabrielle (Lea Seydoux, mesmerizing as ever) fears undergoing a process that “purifies” her DNA by conjuring and then eradicating memory of her past lives. She meets and is instantly drawn to a man named Louis (George MacKay) who shares her reservations about the process.

In a flashback to the turn of the 20th century, she’s a pianist and dollmaker who meets Louis at a party, where she confides in him that she has a dark cloud of dread hanging over her. In the middle memory, set in contemporary times, Louis is, shockingly, a deadly incel, modeled after Elliot Rodger. (Here, director Bertrand Bonello seems to be making a statement about the isolation and difficulty of real intimacy in modern society.) In the final chapter, we wait to see if she and Louis will undergo the treatment, thus losing their past-life connection. What does it all mean Honestly, I’m not sure, but I was absolutely riveted.

7. Will & Harper

Sure, it was jokey and gimmicky, not the kind of serious documentary that will win awards, but no film this year moved me more than this one, in which Will Ferrell takes a cross country trip to get reacquainted with his old best friend who has transitioned and become a woman. The film is generous, open-hearted, curious, and incredibly funny, much like Ferrell himself. It felt like the exact right film at the exact right time.

9. Challengers

Why aren’t there more films about tennis? Not only is the sport itself cinematic—all that thwacking and sweating and skidding across the court—it’s a showdown between two people, the ultimate war of wills. Ingeniously, Luca Guadagnino made his tennis film about two best friends (Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor) turned rivals who are both in love with the same woman, Tashi Donaldson (Zendaya). A threesome of sorts plays out off the court—it’s possible the young men are a little in love with each other, too. But on the court, they’re playing for nothing less than Tashi’s heart.

10. The Apprentice

Films are empathy machines, as Roger Ebert famously said. Which is why I was afraid to watch Ali Abbasi’s film about Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) and his Svengali-like mentorship of Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan). It’s true, young Trump seems a little sheepish here, a little too eager to get out from under his father’s shadow, and almost something resembling sweet. But as Cohn teaches him the three rules of business combat: attack, attack, attack; admit nothing and deny everything; and claim victory no matter the outcome—he creates a monster in his own image.

Trump’s star surpasses his own and suddenly, the rapacious narcissist we all know emerges, treating the man who invented him like a mere rung on the ladder to success. Both performances are excellent—we watch Stan slowly become Trump, mannerisms and all, and Strong actually makes us pity one of the worst humans who ever lived.

Runners up (in alphabetical order): Ex Husbands, Good One, Hit Man, Janet Planet, Love Lies Bleeding, Messy, My Old Ass

*As of writing this, I had not yet seen a few highly praised films, including The Brutalist, Nickel Boys, and Hard Truths.

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Movie Review: Challengers

Max Weiss — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 16:33:13 +0000

Love is a very important word in tennis. In scoring, curiously enough, it means zero. There is also the love of the game which keeps lower ranked players grinding away on the challengers’ circuit, staying at seedy motels, eating crappy food, hoping for that one big break. There is the love we see between doubles players, who traverse the court in perfect harmony, each subconsciously anticipating the other’s next move. There is also, says Zendaya, as tennis phenom Tashi Duncan in Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers, a love between opponents. Sometimes you get into a kind of groove, a kind of physical dance and synchronicity that is itself a form of love. This happens rarely, Tashi says, but when it does it’s magical.

Challengers is about a love triangle, albeit an unconventional one. Best friends and tennis players Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) and Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) are both in love with Tashi—but they’re also secretly in love with each other. We see it early in the film when they’re playing doubles—gliding around the court, chest bumping, and getting high off just being together. Director Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name), that master sensualist, films them in sync—both lanky and loose-limbed, slinging their giant tennis bags over their shoulders in unity.

When they meet Tashi, they’re playing in the junior’s circuit, still merely dreaming of future success. Patrick is going to try his hand as a pro, and both Art and Tashi are going to Stanford, but with one big difference. She’s already a can’t miss star, with an Adidas contract and posters with her likeness plastered all over tournament grounds. In fact, all three meet at a party that Adidas is throwing for her. The boys are in awe of her—her otherworldly poise, beauty, and tennis acumen.

They invite her back to their no-frills hotel room, not expecting her to show up, but she does. As she waits by the door, she hears them frantically straightening the blankets, pulling on shirts, and shoving underwear under the bed. She’s amused and is already aware of the power she has over them.

“I don’t want to be a home wrecker,” she demures, when Art and Patrick admit they both like her.

“It’s not like that,” they both protest . . . a bit too much.

After drinking and smoking and flirting, Tashi pats the bed next to her. In one of the more comical scenes—you’ve probably seen it in the trailer—the boys trip all over each other to sit beside her on the bed. They begin kissing, but she keeps positioning herself so that, in order to kiss her, they must kiss each other. Eventually she pulls away and the boys are making out. The look on her face is, “My work here is done.”

But Challengers is not quite a gay love story, at least not explicitly. Both boys are still after Tashi. Patrick gets her first. It’s clear she’s more attracted to his bad-boy swagger. (Art is the proverbial nice boy.) Art is jealous but accepts his defeat. But he and Tashi get closer in college and he’s by her side when she suffers a catastrophic injury. Realizing her playing days are over—there’s a beautiful scene where Tashi is sitting under a tree and Guadagnino trains the camera on her pained face as she acknowledges the harsh reality—she agrees to coach Art. She says he’s better than Patrick, he just doesn’t know it.

Challengers jumps around several timelines, mostly related to big matches. We know early in the film that Art and Tashi have gotten married and have a daughter and that he has become a multiple Grand Slam champion. Patrick is still languishing in those challenger tournaments, scraping by.

The film makes it clear that what Patrick needed was, well, Tashi. She has transposed her own ambition onto Art, giving him the competitive edge to make him great. But Art is not as enthused about tennis as he once was and is considering retirement. He worries that Tashi will love him less if he’s not a player—and he’s right. Hunger for competition is what fuels Tashi. She sees it in Patrick, but less so in Art, who is basically a dutiful and devoted husband. He became great because she wanted him to be great.

Guadagnino films the tennis scenes like they’re boxing matches—often in slo-mo, with extreme close-ups of flying sweat, straining biceps, and leaping legs. Sometimes he even films from the perspective of the whizzing tennis ball. I’ve never seen tennis filmed more beautifully or effectively.

The soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is another standout. It’s mostly fast-paced electronica, which disrupts and propels the action at unexpected moments. It has a freneticism with fuels the film.

The three leads are in every single frame and they’re all quite good, with Zendaya being a standout. She has that rare beauty and presence, a la Elizabeth Taylor and Angelina Jolie, where we can believe men would makes fools of themselves, sever longtime friendships, and basically move mountains for her. She has one of the great femme fatale lines ever in this film when Art protests that Patrick doesn’t love her.

“What makes you think I want someone to be in love with me,” she says with a steely-eyed glare.

Faist, who was so good as Riff in West Side Story (you haven’t seen West Side Story yet? Fix that!) is solid here, mixing his yearning with a tiny bit of resentment. Deep down, he knows that even though he got the girl, the connection between Patrick and Tashi is stronger. O’Connor does rascally bad boy quite expertly. All three are convincing on the tennis court.

My sense with Challengers is that Guadagnino wanted to make a tennis film because he knew he could capture the beauty and physicality of the sport better than anyone else. Mission accomplished. He’s also pretty good at that love story thing.

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Movie Review: Dune: Part Two

Max Weiss — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 21:42:29 +0000

I want to start this review by speaking directly to the people who were eagerly looking forward to Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two. Congratulations. This film is going to exceed your expectations, light up your pleasure sensors, and pretty much blow your minds. As the kids say, you will be fed.

But what about the rest of us? For all its stellar special effects, rousing action, awe-inspiring beauty—undulating sand dunes, billowing capes, fire-red crescent moons—and cast of young Hollywood hotties acting their butts off, Dune Part Two didn’t pass the ultimate test for me. That test being: Would I recommend the film to my mother? No. No I would not.

Look, not all films are for all people—I get that. But the very best genre films transcend their tropes and offer something for everyone. An apropos example: I would recommend Villeneuve’s Arrival to all film lovers, not just sci-fi fans.

My biggest objection to the Dune series continues to be that it takes itself far too seriously. Again, I get it—we’re dealing with serious stuff here: dying civilizations, ancient prophecies, struggles for power, the dark temptation of revenge. But just because something is set in a desert doesn’t mean it has to be this dry.

I was a fan of first Dune in this series, although I logged similar complaints about its self-seriousness. This one is a little better; the action is just as thrilling but the characters are given more depth and the central moral dilemma of Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet)—at what point does one become blinded by power?—begins to snap into focus. There is also a love story with the wonderful Zendaya, playing Chani, a member of the blue-eyed desert people, the Fremen of Arrakis. Paul is utterly devoted to her (“I will love you for as long as I breathe”) but she is a bit more circumspect. “You will never lose me as long as you stay who you are,” she says pointedly. She knows that Paul is being pulled by some powerful temptations, namely the Fremen people, who see him as a possible savior. They grow to worship him, especially after he manages to tame one of those giant worm creatures, riding it like Ben Hur through the swirling sand. But will Paul lose himself in his quest for revenge? It’s hard not to root for the brave and resolute Paul—he is played by Chalamet, after all—but Chani serves as the film’s voice of moral clarity and skepticism. She knows he’s teetering toward a point of no return.

But we’re not there yet. Paul is still quite heroic in this film, even as he’s haunted by visions of leading the Fremen people to their own destruction. He has voices in his ear: His power-hungry, sorceress mother (Rebecca Ferguson), now pregnant with Paul’s sister, and recruited by the Fremen to be their Reverend Mother; the big-hearted Fremen patriarch, Stilgar (Javier Bardem), who is a true believer in Paul as the messiah; and Chani, who tells him to be wary of these prophecies.

Meanwhile, Arrakis is under siege by the Harkonnen kingdom, a land with, apparently, no Rogaine. Last film we met the Jabba the Hut-like Baron (Stellan Skarsgard), who was after the Arrakis’ precious resource of “spice.” This time we also meet his creepy nephew Feyd (Austin Butler), a lethal swordsman, not above cheating to win a dual, with a beautiful, alien-like face and positively crazed eyes.

Florence Pugh, who does some of the film’s narration, only appears briefly as the daughter of the Emperor Shaddam IV (Christopher Walken), who feels his grip on power slipping away. Her arc will be compelling—she’s loyal to her father, just as Paul was loyal to his, but she comes to realize that he is not a righteous man. By the film’s end, her fate and Paul’s fate will be inextricably entwined. (Alas, we’re going to have to wait for Part Three to see it play out.)

Villeneuve recently gave an interview where he said that he is mostly interested in cinema for spectacle, that dialogue holds little appeal to him. Having seen Dune: Part Two that tracks. The film is a spectacle, a marvel of craftsmanship, the sort of film you need to see on the largest screen possible. But the dialogue is mostly expository, and at times painfully earnest. That said, I wouldn’t want some script doctor jazzing this thing up with zingers (“Stop trying to worm your way out of this, Paul!”). That’s definitely not the vibe. Dune Part Two is the best Dune Part Two it can possibly be. I just have to accept that it’s not the best film for me.

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