‘Ray Gunn’ review: Sam Rockwell and Scarlett Johansson head starry voice cast for Brad Bird’s stylish but unwieldy animation

Dir. Brad Bird. USA. 2026. 120mins

A 1940s-style gumshoe private detective in Metropia – a retro-futurist super-city full of flying cars and alien lifeforms – Ray Gunn (voiced by Sam Rockwell) is a man whose skill-set has fallen out of favour in a fast-moving hi-tech world. In debt up to his turned-up trenchcoat collars, he’s about to lose his business. Then he gets a job, following temperamental music superstar Venus Nova (Scarlett Johansson) at the behest of her husband. But as the bodies pile up and the tabloid press circles, Brad Bird’s stylish but convoluted and unwieldy computer animation reveals that things are not what they seem.  

The screenplay feels laboured and inert

This is the fourth feature film from David Ellison’s Skydance Animation, headed up by former Pixar boss John Lasseter. With Luck (2022), which launched on Apple TV+ and the Netflix titles Spellbound (2024) and Swapped (2026), the studio has yet to make much of a distinctive mark on the world of animation. And while The Incredibles and Iron Giant director Bird brings a boost of star power to the studio’s roster of talent, Skydance Animation may be waiting a while longer for their break-out hit. Following its London premiere, the film has a limited theatrical release in the US and UK on December 4 before hiting Netflix on December 18.

Ray Gunn is a project that Bird first attempted to get off the ground in the late 1990s with Turner Feature Animation, and may have both benefitted and suffered from its exceptionally long gestation period. Several decades of sitting with the idea has facilitated an impressively detailed degree of world-building. The amount of thought and painstaking care which has gone into every visual aspect is evident throughout in the strikingly coherent vision. The screenplay, on the other hand, feels laboured and inert, like something which may have been chewed up by the development process. Unfortunate similarities, both in plot and a visual device, with fellow Netflix title K-Pop Demon Hunters might hamper the film’s prospects as an awards contender.

Bird has cited his key influences for the film as The Maltese Falcon and Buck Rogers, both references which might be slightly lost on modern family audiences. In terms of the design approach, the closest parallel from Bird’s own work would be The Incredibles and its riff on 1950s Atomic era art design. Ray Gunn takes its inspiration from the earlier part of the 20th century, with 1940s fashions (one key character is clearly modelled on Rita Hayworth at the height of her sparkling appeal) and souped-up, exaggerated Art Deco architecture. The skyscrapers of this alternative future world are massive edifices with floor numbers that reach the high hundreds. Elevators are rocket-propelled – failure to buckle up before lift off can be a messy and painful mistake.

In this glossy, sci-fi world, Ray’s office is a throwback to a past era – what furniture is left following the latest visit by the debt collectors is unshowy and functional. Ray’s business partner is a three-legged, monocular alien named Eye-Ra (laconically voiced by Tom Waites). Eye-Ra can take photographs with his single eye, which is a handy skill in the private detective business. These are then developed in a dark room – which begs the question of where the film goes in Eye-Ra’s body? This is just one of many queries raised by a script which doesn’t always feel as fully fleshed out as it might do. Another key inconsistency comes with the character of Venus, whose personality seems to change drastically along with her hair colour.

The film’s politics also lack clarity. The coexistence in Metropia between humans and aliens is an uneasy one, with facilities such as hospitals and even hotels strictly segregated. Aliens, it becomes clear, are regarded as second class citizens and an early scene strikes an uncomfortable note with its reference to “illegal off-worlders”. For much of the film, the alien apartheid is accepted rather than overtly challenged. And even the film’s climax is not the message of tolerance and co-existence that it thinks it is.