There is both mad confidence and confident madness at the heart of director Denis Villeneuve’s undertaking of Dune. Frank Herbert’s vast 1965 novel is in itself a huge thing to digest, even without taking into account its equally cumbersome sequels, and attempts to adapt it have been notable for either failing under the weight of the task (Alejandro Jodorowsky’s crack at it in the ‘70s which eventually fell apart after the costs became never-ending) or being almost impenetrably weird (David Lynch’s 1984 movie). Indeed, even upon its release in 2021, Villeneuve’s first chapter wasn’t onto a promise of a second from Warner Bros, an absolutely bananas idea to countenance since it stops basically in the middle of the book. It’s like telling Peter Jackson he’s good to...