I don’t know how to star this because it is absolutely magnificent — unbelievably so. Villeneuve’s sense of scale, his philosophy, his craftsmanship is impeccable. Similarly the performances are (largely) excellent. Chalamet and Zendaya are exceptional; for me Ferguson transcends. It is a success in of adaptation of the novel, in of filmmaking and in of pushing the boundaries of what can be done on cinema.

But.

I just didn’t like it? I don’t know the extent to which I’m going to be thinking about it in comparison to the first film, which I like very much. It is a love letter to a lonely planet. And I’m just not sure that it reaches the biblical, almost elegiac heights of thundering emotion that everyone else seems to think it does.