Film Review: Dust Bunny

Directed by: Bryan Fuller; Runtime: 106 minutes
Grade: B+

The landscape of a child’s imagination continues to be a remarkable place for the fantasy genre to thrive, notably for those stories with bleak tones and symbolic ideas that sweep up children into dark circumstances beyond what would typically be considered appropriate for their age. Explorations of physical trauma and mistreatment, of wartime grief and loss, of drug abuse and deception are often disguised as whimsical journeys and mysteries happening around kids in peril, which can be unsettling yet also beautiful in the hands of artists who appreciate the delicate power of the imagination to combat reality. Pushing Daisies and Hannibal creative force Bryan Fuller has a unique grasp on that line between reality and fantasy that has elevated similar masterworks of this R-rated dark fairy tale subgenre, a grasp both morbid and gorgeous that’s uniquely qualified to bring Dust Bunny into the world, a hyper-stylized action thriller powered by the wishes of a girl for her wrongdoers to be gobbled up by a monster of her creation.

Set close to Chinatown in New York City, the story centers on Aurora (Sophie Sloan), a curious and conscientious 10-year-old who lives in an apartment with her family. Bright lights and fireworks take her onto the streets one evening where she believes to have witnessed the slaying of a dragon by her "Intriguing Neighbor" (Mads Mikkelsen) from a connecting apartment next to hers. What she actually witnesses is the slaying of a disguised gang of targets by the man from 5B, a professional hit man. Swayed by Aurora's side of the story, the mystery neighbor gets enlisted to help in slaying another monster: the dust bunny living under her bed, who doesn’t let anyone nearby touch the floor without being violently consumed ... not even her now-deceased parents. Curious about the nature of her parents’ death, the neighbor in 5B decides to look into it with a new companion by his side, but even he grows surprised by the monstrous dangers that emerge around Aurora.

Those who have seen Valhalla Rising and The Salvation know that Mads Mikkelsen has more than shrewd villains and wrought victims in his character range, as he’s able to summon a smoldering, durable antiheroic warrior into his uniquely dashing camera presence. Here, his assassin character isn’t given much room for the kind of depth one might find in similar roguish companions like Jean Reno’s Leon or Lee Pace’s Masked Bandit, mostly because the enigmas surrounding Aurora have so much dramatic and situational gravity that they swallow up opportunities for further exploration of the “Intriguing Neighbor” in 5B, outside of the palpable guilt that comes from death. Mikkelsen certainly looks and sounds the part, with casual swoops of his silver and dark hair shrouding his face as he maneuvers around explosives and utilizes martial-arts grappling techniques, while his exquisite chemistry with young actress Sophie Sloan captures the expected hesitation and unique suspiciousness built around the girl’s perception of what’ll put him in danger with her monster. You want the Intriguing Neighbor in 5B to exist in as iconic of a spotlight as other cinematic assassins, yet Mikkelsen can’t quite make that happen with the narrative tools at his disposal.

Instead, Dust Bunny adds story richness to the space around the “Intriguing Neighbor” through the people with whom he interacts and the places he visits while discovering more about his companion and her situation, deciphering what we can from untrustworthy allies like Sigourney Weaver’s wryly gleeful Laverne and soaking up the battlegrounds where he runs into brisk, dangerous shootouts and brawls fitting for his profession. Through the lens of cinematographer Nicole Horst Whitaker, Bryan Fuller and his production team build a borderline-surreal world out of their take on Chinatown that relishes being somewhat timeless, archaic and old-world yet modern and polished. Vivid colors and lustrous architectural details can’t help but recall the iconoclastic underworld of John Wick in tea houses, alleyways, and one badass restaurant with a shark tank in it, but there are also more poetic and metaphorical audiovisual touches -- notably in the apartment building -- that form into a maze-like dreaminess reminiscent of the works of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Guillermo Del Toro in its depiction of Aurora’s troubled mental space.

With time, Dust Bunny grows in confidence and reveals more of the monster at the heart of the story, both figuratively and literally. Throughout the dimly-lit atmosphere of the apartment’s fantastical deep green glow, wood floorboards start to flutter and crack while hungry teeth and hairy spikes emerge in herky-jerky bursts on cue, all which lean into the attitude of a straight-up creature feature with wild visual effects bringing it snarling to life. Somewhat obviously, Dust Bunny begins to thrive on the mystery of the monster’s existence while hit men and government agents converge on this almost-mythical apartment, and the point when the dust bunny becomes this tangible, observable force of nature also marks when Bryan Fuller ramps up thr suspenseful momentum and doesn’t stop. Dark fantastical horror takes over the atmosphere with gunfire and close-quartered combat as mere interruptions, adorned with charismatic faces -- David Dastmalchian as a leader of hitmen out for Aurora; Sheila Atim as his counterpoint, a government caseworker -- that evoke genuine danger and fear amid chaotic sequences of action and destruction through tight spaces.

Figuring out whether the monster’s real or part of Aurora’s headspace turns into both the most intriguing and the most frustrating aspect of Dust Bunny, and it becomes something of a necessary examination once the monster under Aurora’s bed starts taking responsibility for immediate deaths in the situation. Amid a wave of choppy, sensationalized monster-movie attacks and messy outcomes to converging story threads, writer/director Fuller leaves little room for interpretation in a cinematic climax that might’ve actually benefitted from more reading between the lines, more metaphorical playfulness in conveying the nature of the beast and how it translates to Aurora’s trauma and grief. Despite forcing itself to lose meaningful ambiguity as the dust settles, any lack of subtlety or subtext doesn’t take away from the bittersweet impact of the journey’s outcome. Dust Bunny wholeheartedly commits to a contemporary fantasy full of genuine peril and allegorical intent that respects the monstrous rumbling within neglected or mistreated children, and while it doesn’t reach the dramatic heights of other kindred surreal adventures of the subgenre, it sinks its teeth into enough creative, expressive thrills along the way to theive as a different kind of beast.

Film Review: The Bluff

Directed by: Frank E. Flowers; Runtime: 103 minutes
Grade: B-

Ever since the silent film era started adapting literature’s great swashbuckling novels, embarking on high-seas adventures with legendary pirates has continued to be peak cinematic escapism, be it grandiose battles on fully-manned ships or sweaty, stealthy pursuits for treasure through tropical islands. Recently, the successful but fallen-off Pirates of the Caribbean franchise has left the subgenre mostly quiet in its absence for a decade, and while the eager can revisit the cinema of the past with Errol Flynn’s escapades -- please watch Captain Blood and Sea Hawk -- or discover the historically adjacent action-drama series Black Sails, the thirst has grown for something new from the realm of weatherworn, morally-fluid men and women of the sea. In comes Amazon’s The Bluff, arriving to shore with the ambition that gritty skirmishes, character gravitas and a fistful of contemporary twists will lead it across a familiar map to excitement. There might not be a hidden gem at the end of this straight-to-stream pirate jaunt, but there’s more than enough sentiment and swagger behind the swordplay to revel in the escapade.

The Bluff transports us to the Caribbean in the mid-1800s, to a remote island in the Caymans harboring a small township living in seclusion. A Caribbean native, Ercell (Priyanka Chopra), has cultivated a peaceful life with her sister and handicapped son, awaiting the return of her ship captain husband from a significantly overlong trip. That is, until a cluster of boats carrying intimidating raiders rush up to shore, led by the gristly and graying Captain Connor (Karl Urban). The outfit’s objective becomes clear: an old shipmate of theirs has been hiding valuable cargo, and they’re here to collect by any means necessary. The pirates announce their arrival with violence, and at that point Ercell forces herself to flip a switch and transform into who she once was for the sake of protecting her family. In steps Bloody Mary, once a trained and violent swashbuckler who sailed with Captain Connor, armed with knowledge of combat, explosives, and traps that’ll complicate matters for the invaders.

Written by Joe Ballarini and director Frank E. Flowers with genuine historical texture in mind, the story has an unmistakable air of familiarity to it, fueled by the unretired professional killer movies of the modern era such as Kill Bill or John Wick with homages to modern and classic swashbuckling cinema of lore. When it’s shot on location in the Cayman Islands like this for atmosphere, that familiarity matters far less as the vintage moving parts of the classic pirate’s tale take shape around Chopra’s heroine, and it quickly gets the pulse going in The Bluff. Too often in these stories, women are either relegated to damsels in distress or curated into a passable, shielded member of a pirate’s crew, whereas Ercell’s backstory forms into a credible and bleak origin for her skills as a notorious buccaneer and a willingness to murder in protection of her family. From the jump, Chopra comes ready to be convincing as that dashing hero with a transformative past, and the film’s energy burns brighter once she reveals what she’s been hiding from her family.

What I’m still wrapping my head around with The Bluff is how the primary characters default to dramatic comfort zones for their roguish personas, and whether that’s distracting or the right kind of satisfying for a character-driven outing like this. Chopra channels her passionate, yet wise and mature baseline attitude into a grim, fiery vessel for Emcell without fussing over giving her unique ticks or tells, and for the story being told -- and what Bloody Mary has survived -- that’s justifiable. Karl Urban, on the other side of the coin, has a more complex issue going on: his gravelly British accent, narrow smoldering glances and general coat-slinging swagger work like a salacious twist on Butcher from the popular series The Boys. And y’know, seeing Butcher-Urban slide along the scale of morality while surrounded by only the “superpowers” of learned sword combat and steady-aimed firearms can be inherently entertaining, stock delivery or not. When you combine them with their characters’ long unseen history of piracy together, Urban and Chopra in these identifiable states generate the right energy of fire and fury, allowing charisma to sweep us into the flow of action.

Those expecting prolonged fencing battles with clanging blades and measured footwork will be disappointed with The Bluff, as it eschews that sort of pageantry for shorter, wider sabers and hidden daggers designed for quick work during battle when explosives and pistols don’t do the trick. Mixed with martial-arts maneuvers and some good old dirty brawling, the action begins with blood and grit and doesn’t let up the deeper it goes into the island, choreographed with abrupt violence in mind as it precariously walks the tightrope of realism with what Bloody Mary’s able to do and endure. Fights break out in tight spaces from complex angles, whether it’s arid Caribbean homes or dense jungles and dusty caverns, with the cinematography respecting the little details of their geography when the chaos becomes too much for the space. Bloody Mary’s allowed to kick ass, and I’m here for it, from acrobatic chokes to munitions explosions.

After a ravishing climax that pulls all its strengths together into, yet again, something foreseeable yet rousing for its conclusion, The Bluff reaches an interesting destination: it isn’t the kind of sweeping success that begs for big-screen attention with what it accomplishes, but it’s also executed far, far better than other streaming-only or direct-to-video pics, especially in how it stays focused on to-the-ground swashbuckling during an era of genre regrowth. In the absence of blockbuster scale and stakes, there’s the exhilaration of cheering on Bloody Mary’s maternal instincts as she reaches deeper in her bag of tricks to safeguard her family with the tools that she’s got, and every detonation or takedown or swing of the blade marks another taste of of the genre with purpose. That’s why The Bluff succeeds at being adequate and frequently enjoyable pirate escapism, likely not a journey you’ll revisit but one worth admiring for the gusto in how it revives the genre’s sights and sounds.

Film Review: Return to Silent Hill

Directed by: Christophe Gans; Runtime: 106 minutes
Grade: D

With time, the reputation for Christophe Gans’ Silent Hill has transformed from an iffy-reviewed phantasmagoric horror upon its release to one of the more misunderstood and successfully executed video game adaptations of all time, where viewers like myself have defended the film’s seemingly awkward dialogue delivery and bewildering grotesque imagery as an entirely accurate, absorbing replication of what makes the game series so interesting. Then, a sequel was attempted on a shoestring budget that more directly tells another popular story in the series, that of Silent Hill 3, with the result being the far-less defendable Silent Hill: Revelation, which left fans cherry-picking for mediocre successful elements from a good-intended misfire. From that, the gears of public opinion went into motion the way they do: Revelation wouldn’t have been such a major disappointment had Christophe Gans stuck around to direct it and shape its visual language. Turns out, if Return to Silent Hill is any indication, that may not have been the case after all.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, though. Before any glimpse at trailers or even casting, the combination of Silent Hill's building cult status and the disastrous issues of the sequel in the director’s absence eventually led to one of those exciting moments where everyone might actually get their wish: the announcement came that Gans would be returning will full control over a new Silent Hill film. Hooray! His intention? To take on the most popular story from the series, that of James Sunderland and his melancholy journey into the foggy town of Silent Hill to find his beloved Mary, who has met some mysteriously tragic fate. The stories in these games can be deliberately bizarre and vague, but Silent Hill 2 in particular operates in metaphors and psychosis that can be both fascinating and frustrating, where monsters and the moving parts of the plot both often manifest as extensions of the character’s mental space. If Gans does Silent Hill 2 the way he handled his first crack atvthe world, greatness may await.

Jeremy Irvine of War Horse fame has been tapped to bring life to James, and while the choice sounds fine on paper, his emo-haired, strung-out presentation of an enigmatic “painter” in psychological recovery is uninspired, giving off overcaffeinated hangover vibes instead of those of a spooked, yet curious forlorn lover navigating the hazards of an eerie fog town hiding his wife. As opposed to Radha Mitchell’s fraught behavior amid her search for her daughter in Silent Hill, Irvine’s James seems more like he’s fighting through bad fever dreams and migraines that he doesn’t have the wherewithal to get over, divorcing himself from the setting’s dreamlike conceit. Oddly, the performances around James operate as if Christopher Gans took the notes about his first film’s trippy dialogue a little too strongly, as the dramatic voices here are more harshly overwrought and lack Silent Hill's effective off-kilter tempo. Look, I get that people have heard negative things about Silent Hill dialogue and rolled with it previously, but as someone who’s been on that side before, this is different.

At least Christophe Gans has brought back enough of his signature flair and awareness for the franchise to reconstruct the atmosphere … right? Much as it pains me to say, it’s shocking to see how much Return to Silent Hill veers in the wrong direction with this as well, despite Gans quite obviously knowing and appreciating the source material. Scenes from this movie will jump out as direct, point-‘n-whistle duplications of the game’s iconic visuals: the wide shot of James’s car in the parking lot looking out at Toluca Lake; the bathroom mirror; his initial hike through the forest, cemetery, and outer streets of the town’s outskirts. Other familiar faces, grotesque foes and iconography reveal themselves to the initiated on cue, but the script from Gans, frequent collaborator Sandra Vo-Anh and The Crow reboot scribe William Schneider finds ways to dramatize and distort those details into crude mutations of themselves; any subtext from the game has been shoved into the light for all to see.

Return to Silent Hill also lacks the beautiful stillness and unnerving buildup that hallmarked Christophe Gans’ first trip there, the artful allure of terrors in hallways and streets as they crumble upon themselves, captured by steady-handed pan and tilt shots from striking, disorienting angles by Oscar-nominated cinematographer Dan Laustsen. In its absence, Gans reaches for mundane contrivances and computer-generated monstrosities to fill the void, be it with waves of skittering nibblers, writhing fluid-spewing walkers, or aggressive flashes of headache-inducing light all in a burnt-orange glow. Jostled by bobbly camera movement from [REC] cinematographer Pablo Rosso that forces extra chaos and instability where it’s already there, overzealous production decisions and computer wizardry drain any convincing reality from the falling ash on the foggy streets, from the decaying walls and rusted metal in the Otherworld, from the pale twisted flesh of the creatures. And yes, that includes the clunky arrival of iconic villain Pyramid Head, vaguely accurate to his place in the game but more like a stop in a haunted house or theme park than a facet of anyone’s nightmares.

By the end of its turgid, never-ending drag through psychological dead ends, Return to Silent Hill accomplishes something I genuinely didn’t think possible: it ends up being a significantly weaker film, either game adaptation or just straight up genre pic, than the panned, budget-strapped Revelation from years prior. Just on the surface, it’s tough to point out any efforts to scare that actually work in its runtime -- a rolling head here, a hallway of writhing nurses zombies there -- where getting a rise out of the audience lies in rattling metal and cranking up the volume when acid sizzles and radios fizzle, feigning interest in those signature marks of the series while funneling streaks of metaphorical mystery into a consequential twist at the end. Jacob’s Ladder or In the Mouth of Madness, this isn’t; instead, the sirens are going off as it becomes clear that Christophe Gans won’t be rescuing Silent Hill from its cinematic woes.