Brad Bird's 'Ray Gunn' Review: Muddled Anti-Corporate Noir — SkimNews
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- Brad Bird's decades-long passion project "Ray Gunn" was first signed by Skydance Animation in 2021 and will debut in select theaters December 4 before streaming on Netflix December 18
- The film features Sam Rockwell as hard-boiled private eye Raymond Gunn, Tom Waits as his cyclopsian alien partner Eye-Ra, and Scarlett Johansson as omnipresent pop star Venus Nova in a retro-futurist detective story
- Set in Metropia — "a gigantic city in an alternate future as seen from 1939" — the noir follows humans and aliens coexisting uneasily, with non-human life "seemingly looked down upon" and Art Deco styling that Bird likens to "putting it in a wind tunnel"
- Co-writer Matthew Robbins and Bird pack the story with misdirects and subplots that feel "curiously underbaked," leading the reviewer to suggest the project might have worked better as an adult-skewing series
- The film's villain Megamax is "notably and obviously evil from the start," and the reviewer finds the anti-conglomerate messaging — called "a virulent screed against the punishing power of entertainment conglomerates" — lands awkwardly given the release follows the massive Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger
- The reviewer praises the "vibrant world" of Metropia and the on-point voice casting, but ultimately finds the story muddled by overstuffed plotting and messaging whose meaning stays withheld until the final moments
Why it matters: Brad Bird's decades-in-the-making "Ray Gunn" arrives just as the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger creates exactly the entertainment mega-conglomerate the film denounces. The reviewer finds its muddled anti-corporate messaging — paired with overstuffed plotting and underbaked subplots — undermines what should have been a triumphant debut for a beloved filmmaker.
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