Let us not mince words. The plot of Dune: Part Two is so arcane, so shamelessly ridiculous, that to describe it is to risk discrediting the project. A messianic figure roams a planet teeming with psychotropic dust. Drowned worms excrete a magic potion. Christopher Walken is emperor of the galaxy. By rights, both the new picture and Dune, its 2021 prequel, ought to be among the stupidest moviemaking ventures ever conceived. That the films are instead masterpieces is nothing short of a cinematic miracle. See them back to back, on an enormous screen if possible, and settle in for one of the great fantasy epics of our time. 

Like its prequel and source novel, Dune: Part Two takes place on the planet Arrakis, where a pair of noble families have lately struggled for dominance. In the 2021 film, the savage House Harkonnen struck the ruling Atreides clan, murdered its patriarch, and stranded its survivors in a vast desert. As the new movie opens, heir Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) and his mother, Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), have joined the nomadic Fremen people and must master their ways before plotting revenge.