Dune: Part Two. What the sci-fi sequel gets right

When Denis Villeneuve set out to make a movie adaptation of Frank Herbert's classic science fiction novel Dune, he took a massive risk and split the story into two halves, with no guarantee that the second half would be greenlit. 

Spoiler alert: Dune: Part Two was greenlit and it comes out in theatres this Friday. 

Dune: Part Two sees the return of Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya as Paul Atreides and Chani, respectively, while Florence Pugh, Austin Butler and Anya Taylor-Joy join as new characters.

Early reviews of the sci-fi epic from critics are glowing and two of them join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud today on Commotion. Rad Simonpillai is a film writer for CBC Arts and CTV's Your Morning and Rachel Ho is the film editor at Exclaim! Magazine. They'll share why the movie is a must see and why it might be Denis Villeneuve's best work yet.

Part two made it all worth it. All of the sudden the story clicks in and everything comes together. I could finally see what the story was really about. I can see that this is actually a story that is influenced by Lawrence of Arabia, as Denis Villeneuve has mentioned in the past.

For the full discussion, plus how Dune relates to new Disney Plus series Shogun, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast on your favourite podcast player.

LISTEN | Today's episode on YouTube: