Bryan Fuller is one of those names in television that is spoken of like an institution, at least for geeks. The man is responsible for short-lived but beloved TV series like Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies, Hannibal, and launching the new Star Trek Discovery universe as well as cracking the “un-adaptable” Neil Gaiman novel, American Gods, at least for its brilliant first season before he and co-creator Michael Green were jettisoned for cheaper alternatives. That’s the other thing about Bryan Fuller, he tends to wear out his welcome fast for such an eponymous show-starter. Whether it’s work habits or ego, or just butting heads with foolhardy execs, Fuller tends to get pushed out on his projects. That’s why a movie written and directed by Fuller has immediate and immense appeal. Here’s a singular vision from one of TV’s most unique creators, and he doesn’t have to fret about having to craft a season of storytelling. He just has to concern himself with 100 minutes of hopeful entertainment. Dust Bunny has a crackerjack premise, a great leading man, and some stylish flourishes and fun, and yet I walked away, after eight years removed from seeing a Fuller project, not feeling particularly swept away.

A ittle girl, Aurora (Sophie Sloan), hires a hitman (Mads Mikkelsen) to kill the monster hiding under her bed. Boom. Sold. Naturally, the jaded hitman who’s seen it all doesn’t believe the little girl. Now not only will he have to defend the little girl from a potential monster, he’ll have to fend off other hired guns and assassins trying to take out this kid because she “knows too much.”

Given that hook, I thought that Dust Bunny was going to be a monster movie by way of a hitman movie, but really it’s much more of a glib and exhausting hitman movie with the idea of a monster until the final fifteen minutes of chaotic culmination. I thought there was going to be a much more compelling and charming relationship between the two characters, possibly forming a surrogate father/daughter relationship as they descend into a realm of danger even an experienced man of action is ill-equipped for. I thought Dust Bunny was going to be more of a Guilermo del Toro-style fantasia and instead it’s far more akin to those Tarantino ripoffs with a stilted attitude in place of stakes and originality. This is much more akin to flimsy style-over-substance dross like Gunpowder Milkshake or Polar (also starring Mikkelsen) than del Toro. This is far more of a hitman movie that occasionally remembers, oh yeah, there’s this whole fantasy/horror element that could make it stand out. There’s so much about our lead hitman having to worry about this little girl because she saw his face and can identify him. There are teams of other hitmen that want to bump her off, sent by his own handler, Laverne (Sigourney Weaver). As a hitman movie, it’s pretty dull because our hero is overpowered and under matched. At no point will you worry for his own sake, and plus, just sending disposable humans into the same apartment night after night is boring. I’ve seen those kinds of movies before, even the ones that are just self-infatuated style orgies of violence. What makes this movie unique is the freaking monster, and it doesn’t really take hold until the very end of the movie, not coincidentally the best part. At that point, Dust Bunny becomes a whimsical variation on Tremors, where the unwitting participants cannot touch the floor, lest they be eaten by a monster under the floorboards. It’s a lot harder to have your shootouts and fights while balancing on scarce end tables (what if the fantasy monster could really transform the floor into lava? Oh, the nasty possibilities).

If Dust Bunny was just an exercise in vacuous style, I might find some fleeting pleasures from it, but the whimsical tone takes the premise of an unorthodox fable and mutates it under insufferable irony. It’s the kind of movie that knows you’ve seen glib hitman movies before, and it’s playing into those expectations with an attempted ironic distance but instead it just comes across as annoyingly circuitous conversations. The pained banter became baffling as characters attempted to take what the previous character said and nothing while just pushing the conversation forward a millimeter. These are not funny exchanges. These are not examples of cutesy dialogue. It’s just maddening nonsense that runs in circles, and I found myself mentally tuning out whenever it kept repeating. For me, the dialogue was too irreverent for its own good.

There’s a really engaging and imaginative movie on the outskirts trying to push on through. Having a little girl with a monster following her begs for further world-building and examination, let alone integrating the monster’s unique abilities and dangers. As it stands, all one has to do is stay off the floor during nightfall (a reintroduction of bedpans is an unfortunate must). Early on, it feels like the little girl is in real danger, as the monster literally lifts her bed off the floor and seems to try and shake her loose. Although throughout the daytime she still canoes around her lonely apartment on a giant hippo on wheels. I guess it’s a precaution or maybe she just wants to get better at apartment canoeing before nighttime when she really needs to make sure she can paddle. This is the last time you’ll feel she’s in actual danger. I wanted far less of the overtly stylish hitman antics and more of the perspective of a hitman thrust into a fantasy. Dust Bunny is a disappointing inverse, turned inside out, with a hitman movie with a different Big Bad. I’m not saying Fuller had to rely on staid fantasy storylines, like the girl is really some long-lost royalty to a hidden realm, never knowing her true identity and inheritance, and under attack from otherworldly forces wanting to usurp her throne. I mean I probably would have enjoyed that more, pushing our flinty hitman into entertaining fish-out-of-water fantasia rather than more hitman shootouts on repeat.

Dust Bunny was a frustrating experience for me from a creator that I frankly expected more from. Fuller’s always had a penchant for twee whimsy, genre blending, dark humor and the macabre, but I didn’t find his film debut nearly as cute and quirky as his television output. I found much of the tone grating and overly stylized, and while I’m sure the mannered directing is meant to better convey a fable, I impatiently grew tired of the minimalist sets, the repetitive deadpan dialogue, and the surprising lack of imagination. I wish the last act had been the whole movie. I can see fans of more malevolent 1980s children’s movies finding something to enjoy here, and over decades Fuller has certainly established enough of a fanbase to declare any entity a possible burgeoning cult movie. There are moments that made me reminisce about Jean-Pierre Jenuet (Amelie, City of Lost Children), but then I wondered what he would have done with this same premise and the comparison wasn’t so favorable any longer. I’m coming across too harsh because I wanted Dust Bunny to be much more given its premise and creative voice. There’s enough here that will qualify as passing entertainment for most viewers, especially for fans of twisted fairy tales. There’s just not enough here in execution to make me as eager for Fuller’s next feature film.

Nate’s Grade: C