Film Podcast - Dune: Part 2

Film Feature by Chris Olson

On Thursday March 7th, 2024, regular Nerd News providers The Fantom Zone released their epic podcast episode covering (in incredible detail) the biggest film release of the year so far - Dune: Part 2.

Part of the UK Film Review Podcast collection of awesome film podcasts, The Fantom Zone is made up of Chris, Ian, Symone and Toby, who entertain their listeners with regular banter and bickering about comic book films, superheroes, and generally nerdy things (their words).

This month's film podcast episode for them focused on the latest movie adaptation of the 1965 sci-fi novel from author Frank Herbert. The story is known as being "unfilmable" and the 1980s attempt by David Lynch left me and fellow film critic Brian Penn less than impressed in our recent film podcast episode for UK Film Club (another UKFR show). You can check out our thoughts on the Lynchian Dune in Episode 12 of UK Film Club on all good podcast platforms.

But 2024 is all about filmmaker Denis Villeneuve's second instalment, after a very impressive first part in 2021. With an incredible cast, including Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Florence Pugh, Austin Butler and Christopher Walken in a bathrobe, audience expectations for Dune: Part 2 were high - almost as much as those on cinemas for stocking those special edition popcorn containers.

In the episode of The Fantom Zone, the film critics were broadly impressed by almost all aspects of the film. Which is rare (see their episode on Oppenheimer!). For a film that closes in on a 3-hour run time, one of the only complaints was that the film was too short, which, if we are honest is a compliment. Chris Buick was sadly missing from this month's film podcast episode but for the remaining 3 hosts, they each had different reasons for loving Dune: Part 2 and the episode is well worth a listen if you have seen the film.

If you haven't yet seen Dune: Part 2, perhaps wait to listen to the episode - as it contains a ton of spoilers. It also contains a brief mention of Avatar 2 and some incredible impressions of Groundskeeper Willie from The Simpsons, so it literally has everything.

Listen below or find the episode on ALL good podcast platforms by searching UK Film Review Podcast.