Dune: Part Two gets rave reviews: Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya’s sci-fi sequel earns near-perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes as one critic declares ‘our blockbuster drought is over’

The reviews for Dune Part 2 are starting to trickle in, and they’re even better than the first part.

Director Denis Villeneuve treated author Frank Herbert’s massive 1965 science fiction masterpiece with a two-part film, splitting the 896-page book in two.

The first film – 2021’s Dune – was also critically acclaimed, with an impressive 83% score on Rotten Tomatoes from 509 reviews, as well as a 90% audience rating.

The first wave of reviews have arrived for Dune Part 2 ahead of its March 1 release, earning a whopping 97% based on 112 reviews Rotten tomatoeswhile stars like Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya continue their global press tour.

While the RT score will likely fluctuate as more reviews come in, the film has only received three negative reviews so far.

The first wave of reviews for Dune Part 2 have arrived ahead of its March 1 release, earning a whopping 97% of 112 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes as stars like Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya continue their global press tour.

The film is set on the planet Arrakis, where young Paul Atreides (Chalamet) teams up with Chani (Zendaya) and her Fremen people to take back what is rightfully his.

The novel is widely considered one of the best science fiction novels of all time, but previous attempts to adapt it have failed, including an unproduced version by Alejandro Jodorowsky that was chronicled in the 2013 documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune, a 1984 adaptation of David Lynch and a 2000 miniseries.

Villeneuve’s decision to split the massive book in two appears to be paying off, with a thunderous response from critics, many of whom weren’t big fans of the first half of 2021.

Many critics praised the film’s gigantic scope Rolling stoneby David Fear.

‘Villeneuve has outdone himself. More importantly, he has done justice to the scope, scale and sheer strangeness of the back half of a stoner-lit touchstone without, pun intended, sanding down the edges.”

VarietyPeter Debruge admitted that splitting the film into two halves was a “huge gamble” that somehow paid off.

‘Whatever you do, don’t confuse this successor with a sequel. It’s the second half of a story,” Debruge admitted.

While the 2021 film turned the world upside down, Debruge adds part two, “graduates from the world-building tension of the 2021 original to a meaty, all-encompassing story.”

Villeneuve’s decision to split the massive book in two appears to be paying off, with a thunderous response from critics, many of whom weren’t big fans of the first half of 2021.

One of the few negative criticisms came from IndieWireDavid Ehrlich, who said the film was “stunning to watch, but painful to watch.”

“Not only does this new film pick up right where the last one left off, it also picks up the strengths and weaknesses that made the previous chapter so amazing to watch, yet repulsive to watch,” Ehrlich adds.

Another negative review came from Lovia Gyarkye of The Hollywood Reporter, who praised the “agility” of the two-hour, 46-minute film, adding that it was more of a “cinematic event” than the first film.

However, Gyarkye added, “Part Two is plagued by a nagging superficiality when it comes to portraying the Fremen, an indigenous people fighting for self-determination within the Empire; the film struggles to fully embrace the nuance of Herbert’s anti-imperial and ecologically dystopian text.’

Still, many other critics gave the sequel very high marks, including ScreenCrush‘ is Matt Singer, who praised both the film’s content and style.

Dune also stands in stark contrast to so many other shallow tentpoles of recent years, investing a tremendous amount of time and energy into treating its characters as fully realized and deeply flawed people, and not just as props to be scanned and programmed into computers so she can do cool-looking but physically impossible things on the screen,” he says.

The Los Angeles TimesJoshua Rothkopf claimed the film was “an instant milestone in its genre,” while Johnny Oleksinski of the New York Post boldly declared, “Our blockbuster drought is over, thanks to a brilliant sequel set on a sweltering desert planet.”

NPRGlen Weldon added: ‘The first film tackled the hard work of arranging the playing pieces on the board, so part two starts slamming them together quickly. All that factional conflict going on in the first film finally comes to a boiling point.”

One of the few negative criticisms came from IndieWire’s David Ehrlich, who said the film was “stunning to watch, but painful to watch.”

Part two also features a fair number of newcomers, including Florence Pugh (Princess Irulan), Austin Butler (Feyd-Rautha) and Christopher Walken (Emperor)

Chalamet, Zendaya, Dave Bautista and Rebecca Ferguson are among the stars from the first who have returned for part two

Chalamet, Zendaya, Dave Bautista (Beast Rabban), Javier Bardem (Stiglar), Josh Brolin (Gurney Hallack) and Rebecca Ferguson (Jessica) are among the stars from the first who have returned for part two.

Part two also features a fair number of newcomers, including Florence Pugh (Princess Irulan), Austin Butler (Feyd-Rautha) and Christopher Walken (Emperor).

Villeneuve returns as director from an adapted script he wrote with Jon Spaihts (Passengers), based on Herbert’s epic opus.

The first film was released both theatrically and on the Max streaming service and still grossed $108.8 million domestically and $433.7 million worldwide.