Brad Bird's Long-Gestating Animated Noir Lands With a Thud
Brad Bird's Ray Gunn, his fifth animated feature and a project he has reportedly been trying to make since before The Iron Giant, arrives on Netflix on December 18 with the visual ambition of a master craftsman and the emotional depth of a first draft. Critics who screened the film agree on its central paradox: the world it builds is gorgeous; the people who inhabit it are not worth caring about. [1][2]
A Retrofuturist World Worth Staring At
Set in the imaginary city of Metropia — a place that looks, as one critic put it, like "1940s Manhattan but with hovercars and jetpacks" — Ray Gunn is unmistakably a Brad Bird production in its visual ambition [2]. Variety describes it as "a vision of an impossible 21st-century metropolis as might have been dreamed in 1939," rendered in "chic, clashing scarlets and lilacs and burgundies" across Art Deco skyscrapers, smoky nightclub interiors, and kitsch rent-a-rooms, all populated by vehicles with "the luxurious, elongated curves of pre-WWII automobiles." [1]
The film sits in the genre-melding territory of sci-fi noir, drawing inevitable comparisons to Blade Runner and The Fifth Element, though critics note it is lighter and more family-friendly than either predecessor [1][2]. Who Framed Roger Rabbit? is cited as a clear creative touchstone — the "original and best repurposing of noir tropes for family entertainment" — though the gap between that film's wit and Ray Gunn's is, critics suggest, uncomfortably wide [1].
The Hollywood Reporter is less generous about the visuals than Variety, arguing that Metropia's surfaces look "Disneyland-ified" and that the main characters are "pretty, but in an unremarkable way you wouldn't be able to pick out of a lineup." [2] Both outlets, however, single out one tactile exception: the glazed-porcelain skin of alien mob boss Slugsy, voiced by Matt Berry, whose almost sculptural quality only throws the visual blandness of the rest of the film into sharper relief [2].
The Story: A Caper That Zigs, Zags, and Underwhelms
Sam Rockwell voices the titular Ray Gunn, a down-on-his-luck private investigator whose office grows emptier with each scene as repo men strip it bare [1][2]. His case begins when he is hired — in Variety's telling, by a character named Arnold (Bobby Cannavale), described as the "lunkhead fourth husband" of pop megastar Venus Nova; in the Hollywood Reporter's account, by a studio head named Vogel (Alan Tudyk) — to surveil or manage Nova, played by Scarlett Johansson [1][2]. The discrepancy in character framing reflects a plot that both reviews describe as overly convoluted in its setup and yet disappointingly predictable in its payoff, with the Hollywood Reporter noting that a major twist is "signaled so blatantly, anyone half-paying attention will surely have guessed the big reveal roughly 60 minutes before it's confirmed." [2]
Venus Nova herself is a point of mild critical bafflement. Rather than a classic Hollywood siren, she is a Dua Lipa-style electropop artist — her original songs written and produced by Grammy winner Kimbra, of "Somebody That I Used to Know" fame — which sits awkwardly against the film's 1939-by-way-of-2039 aesthetic [1]. Michael Giacchino's score, described by Variety as "wonderfully busy, brassy" and unapologetically rooted in the film's preferred mid-century era, reportedly does not much converse with Kimbra's contemporary pop compositions [1].
The screenplay, co-written by Bird and Matthew Robbins, is rated PG and earns that rating in ways that please neither demographic it targets. The Hollywood Reporter argues it is "simultaneously too simplistic for adults and too serious-minded for kids," while Variety notes that today's children may be "entirely bewildered" by its noir conventions [1][2].
Characters Without Texture
Both reviews converge most forcefully on the film's character problem. Rockwell voices Ray with what Variety calls "jaded slyness," but the character has "the unlined face and swooshy hair of a Disney prince, rather than any stubbly Bogart gruffness," making it difficult to warm to him [1]. The Hollywood Reporter is blunter: Ray "has no personality beyond 'good,' and only the vaguest suggestion of a backstory." [2]
Johansson's Venus fares little better. The Hollywood Reporter describes her as "not much more than your standard-issue troubled starlet" who "suddenly develops a whole other personality out of nowhere that feels completely disconnected from the first." [2]
Tom Waits Saves What He Can
The one unanimous bright spot is Tom Waits as Eye-Ra, Ray's one-eyed alien partner and the film's most inspired piece of casting. Variety calls it "the film's most inspired casting coup, yielding its most affecting voice performance"; the Hollywood Reporter names Eye-Ra "the lone standout in the ensemble," voiced with "a weariness that adds some sorely needed wit and weight." [1][2]
Eye-Ra is also the vehicle for the film's most pointed social commentary. In Metropia, humans and aliens live under a strict segregationist system: Eye-Ra is barred from human hospitals, and aliens may only enter certain clubs as serving staff [1]. When Eye-Ra is gravely injured and refused treatment at a human hospital, the film rushes past the moment so quickly, the Hollywood Reporter notes, that "it's all but forgotten just minutes later" — a missed opportunity that exemplifies the film's broader failure to engage seriously with the themes it raises [2]. Xenophobia, corporate corruption, celebrity culture, and artificial intelligence are all gestured at, but the film, in the Hollywood Reporter's assessment, "has not much to say about any of them beyond that they're bad." [2]
The Verdict on Bird's Long-Delayed Passion Project
The Hollywood Reporter frames the film's mediocrity as especially puzzling given that Bird has been developing it for decades, suggesting it "feels very much like a first draft of a project." [2] Variety is somewhat more forgiving, acknowledging that "there are more than enough visual and sonic delights here to compensate" for its shortfalls, while still concluding that Ray Gunn has "slick, boundless energy and resourcefulness to spare, but that doesn't quite amount to charm." [1]
What to Watch Next
Whether audiences embrace Ray Gunn as a visually sumptuous holiday diversion or dismiss it as a beautiful shell will likely determine whether Netflix and Skydance Animation greenlight the sequel the film's ending reportedly leaves room for. Watch also for whether Kimbra's original songs gain traction independent of the film — and whether Bird, now with five animated features to his name, returns to the more emotionally grounded territory of The Incredibles or doubles down on spectacle for its own sake.
