The opening of
Dune: Part Two is just a springboard leap from the ending of the first installment. After the armies launched by Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgard) retake the desert planet of Arrakis—thus reclaiming control of the planet’s supply of that valuable psychotropic commodity known as Spice—Paul Atreides (
Timothée Chalamet), heir of the peace-seeking House Atreides, and his mother Lady Jessica (
Rebecca Ferguson), who belongs to a powerful mystical sisterhood, flee into the desert. There, Paul meets a girl he has seen in premonitions,
Zendaya’s willful and wise Chani. From this point, the story unspools to include a psychopathic Harkonnen heir (
Austin Butler), a possible future interplanetary princess (
Florence Pugh),
and an embryo who advises her mother from the womb. And the deadly desert beastie known as the sandworm—the stuff of nightmares, like a sea cucumber with teeth—again rears its ugly head.
