Quote: “The man who was called Muad’Dib… is now a prisoner of his own future.”

 Plot: Twelve years after the Jihad, the universe bows to Emperor Paul Atreides, but he is tormented by the golden path of his prescience. The man who sought to be free is now trapped by billions of deaths wrought in his name. A viper’s nest of conspiracy—the Bene Gesserit, the Spacing Guild, and the Tleilaxu—moves in the shadow of Arrakis, determined to dethrone the Kwisatz Haderach by exploiting his one true vulnerability: his love for Chani. Quick cuts: A resurrected Duncan Idaho (Ghola Hayt) with haunting, metallic eyes; Princess Irulan weeping over a desolate map; Alia Atreides, now a pre-adolescent, speaking with the wisdom of a thousand ancestors; Paul standing on a balcony as Fremen legions chant his name, his face a mask of cosmic dread; a blinding flash as a Stone Burner detonates. A Tleilaxu voice whispers, “The messiah will fall like any other man.”

Final beat: Chani is in labor, screaming, as Paul, newly blinded by the attack, uses his final thread of vision—borrowed from his unborn son’s eyes—to strike out at a shapeshifting enemy. He makes a final, heartbreaking choice. Cut to a solitary figure walking into the deep desert. The final sound is the faint, distant rumble of a massive worm.

 Verdict: A monumental, chilling political thriller. Chalamet delivers the ultimate, devastating performance as a king undone by fate. This is the price of prophecy.