Disappointing
Summary
While some people will celebrate this movie just for being weird, and the two leads were excellent, Dust Bunny struggles because it doesn’t showcase most of the action and doesn’t fully embrace its premise.
Plot: An orphaned girl (Sophie Sloan) tries to hire a hitman (Mads Mikkelsen) to kill the monster living under her bed.
Review: I generally like Bryan Fuller’s television stuff – at least the ones I’ve seen. Dead Like Me? Great series, terrific concept, kept me interested throughout. Hannibal? Great re-imagining of the Red Dragon book, gripping narrative, outstanding casting. So, when I saw the trailer for this, I was immediately sold on giving it a shot. After all, who wouldn’t want to hire a hitman to kill the monster under their bed?
Unfortunately, the promise that Dust Bunny has is severely undercut by one problem – by its refusal by one of its main characters, the hitman, to believe in the fantastical elements. The movie takes faaaaaaaar too long for him to buy into what the little girl is selling. Which is understandable, I suppose. Why would an adult believe a little girl? But, for most of the movie, it’s just Mads telling her he doesn’t believe in her monster and believing that it’s other hit people instead. It becomes tedious. If it leaned more into its promise, which is Mads trying to figure out HOW to kill the monster under her bed, that would have been more engaging. Instead, we have her constantly insisting there’s a monster under her bed, and him insisting there’s not.
There are some humorous elements as well, but they mostly fall flat. There’s a running joke that Mads can’t say the little girl’s name correctly (Aurora) because of his accent. It happens throughout, and it may have been funny the first time, but by the eighth time, it’s not that funny. There are other wacky elements (like Sigourney Weaver’s character cartoonishly elongating her face to stave off “lock jaw), and there’s this awkward silence scene with David Dastmalchian that I guess is supposed to be awkwardly funny, but none of it sticks. Again, it’s just wackiness for the sake of wackiness, with no payoff. Oh, and the nuns doing the musical in church to the Lord’s prayer, while Aurora steals the collection plate? Yeah…
Because Mads (and by extension, I guess, the viewer) is supposed to doubt the little girl’s story about the monster under her bed, you don’t see a lot of the monster attacks. You just hear them. That’s another disappointment. At first, I thought it was just because of the budget, but then I realized it’s because you’re supposed to be questioning her story, along with Mads’s character. If this was for budgetary reasons, then my answer is – don’t do a monster movie. You could easily have done a refresh of Léon: The Professional, and it would have worked with these two actors.
The action starts out promising. Mads has a big fight scene at the start, and for a moment, just a moment, I thought he could follow in the footsteps of Liam Neeson and Bob Odenkirk as a mature action star. Unfortunately, you can’t see a hell of a lot from the fight (it’s at night, of course), and he fights an…animated dragon, it looks like. There are lots of colours and visuals in the fight, but no substance. Same with the mid-movie fight with the green assassin (who looks like he blended into the wall – that wackiness again). Most of the fights and the attacks, as I said earlier, are not shown and only heard, making for a less-than-thrilling experience.
The monster itself is alright – I suppose it’s like a monster rabbit. The CGI is wonky in parts, and the animated rabbits that both the girl and Sigourney Weaver’s character see in the restaurant are unnecessary. So is the actual “Dust Bunny” that Aurora sees at the beginning of the movie and then randomly disappears. As far as monsters go, I guess I’ve seen worse. The soundtrack is non-descript.
The highlight of the movie is the two leads. The girl is shockingly not that annoying (except for constantly correcting Mads’s pronunciation of her name), and Mads is excellent as usual. Sigourney Weaver looked like a woman who had known better scripts, but needed the paycheck. David Dastmalchian is entertaining as always in his limited role. Sheila Atim does her best with her limited screen time and has an awesome presence.
If I could sum up Dust Bunny in one word, it’s disappointing. The movie had everything going for it: a cool premise, a great cast, and the potential for a lot of fun. Instead, it decides to spend the majority of the movie second-guessing its own premise, and the entertaining parts don’t pay off as they should. Throw in the unnecessary weirdness, and you have a movie that you should either stream if you’re still curious or skip altogether.