At Vulture, Matt Zoller Seitz writes about Zendaya: “Denis Villeneuve’s two Dune films are bookended by Zendaya’s face. It’s her voice as the Fremen warrior Chani that you see and hear in the opening flash-forward of the first movie, introducing viewers to the universe of 10191 wherein the indigenous warriors of the desert planet Arrakis are battling the evil Harkonnen family. And it’s Zendaya’s face you see at the end of the second Dune film, after her lover, Paul Atreides, scion of House Atreides, the man she trained in the ways of the desert, has thrown Chani over for another woman, the galactic emperor’s daughter, in order to protect his family’s bloodline through marriage. The final scene of the second Dune is an overt nod to the end of The Godfather but with a twist. Francis Coppola’s gangster epic ends with ascendant Mafia don Michael Corleone shutting a door in the face of his wife, Kay, played by Diane Keaton, visually declaring that this is a world of men over which women hold no sway. Villeneuve’s film upends that reading by following Chani beyond her baleful, wounded reaction, into the desert, where she climbs a dune and prepares to ride one of the planet’s gigantic sandworms. The final shot of the film isn’t of the approaching worm but of Zendaya, exhibiting a mix of hurt, anger, and raw determination.”

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