Ray Gunn Review: Brad Bird's Animated Film-Noir — SkimNews
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Brad Bird directs Ray Gunn, an animated retro-futurist film-noir with Sam Rockwell voicing ex-cop-turned-gumshoe Raymond Gunn, who left the force after covering for a female detective he loved.
- The film's retro-futurist cityscape blends Metropolis and Blade Runner influences with moving walkways, hologram billboards, and bulbous airborne cars styled on a previous century, alongside black-and-white TV monitors.
- Tom Waits voices Eyera, Ray's alien partner who is denied entry to a humans-only hospital after a violent incident, in a world marked by anti-alien bigotry.
- Scarlett Johansson voices Venus Nova, a singing superstar whose fourth husband Arnold (Bobby Cannavale) schemes to fabricate divorce evidence using her stand-in double, drawing in smoothie-manager first husband Barry (Alan Tudyk) and mob boss Slugsy (Matt Berry).
- The film features a zero-gravity nightclub interlude, a gun capable of scrambling its targets' limbs, and commentary on algorithmic advertising and data privacy.
- IndieWire's headline frames Ray Gunn as Bird's 'longtime passion project' with a 'muddled message,' contrasting with this Guardian review's praise for its smart, humane storytelling and old-school entertainment values.
Why it matters: IndieWire's headline calls Ray Gunn Bird's 'longtime passion project' but flags a 'muddled message,' while this Guardian review calls it an old-school family classic. The split suggests critics diverge on whether Bird's thematic threads — algorithmic ads, alien bigotry — cohere into a satisfying whole or compete with the noir caper.
Ask SkimNews
