“It’s hard being the only honest guys in a crooked game.”
Leaning hard into an Atompunk aesthetic, Academy Award winner Brad Bird’s new animated feature, Ray Gunn takes place in an immense, retro neo-noir city with a worn vision of tomorrow called Metropia. This environment appears to have been constructed by combining the best design aspects of Hanna-Barbera’s The Jetsons, more than a dash of the glowing, grimy neon from Ridley Scott’s 1982 cyberpunk gem Blade Runner, anchored by the swooping verticality of the chrome towers from 23rd-century Brooklyn in the excellent 1997 Luc Besson film, The Fifth Element. With a timely theme focusing on AI encroaching on the workforce and the destructive corrosion of bigotry (here, anti-alien hatred) as well as characters who are just too cool for school, Ray Gunn is almost a great movie. However, an overlong and very out-of-place slapstick body-horror scene played for laughs jolted this reviewer right out of the picture. Ray Gunn is an unusual near-miss for Brad Bird that fans of his work will still enjoy.
“Did you go and do the right thing again? You know we’re months away from being able to afford ethics!”
Ray Gunn is a 2026 Paramount/ Skydance Media movie distributed by Netflix. It is written and directed by Brad Bird. Music is provided by Michael Giacchino. Scarlett Johansson leads a stellar vocal cast including Sam Rockwell, Tom Waits, Michelle Rodriguez, Alan Tudyk, Bobby Cannavale, Kether Donohue, Matt Berry, and Aasif Mandvi.
“I trust you’re housebroken?”
“Yeah, but I’m rethinking it.”
Cars, carriers and sentients in jetpacks buzz amid Metropia’s soaring, neon-scored towers and up and down her grand, multilevel avenues. In the basement of one of those colossal, gleaming edifices is the dingy office belonging to Ray Gunn (Rockwell). Gunn is an anachronism. He’s an ex-cop who’s put out his own shingle. He’s a private detective, a dick, a shamus, a sleuth, a shadow, a tail-man, a pavement artist and a gumshoe. If you have a problem, he’ll solve it (for a small fee).
Business hasn’t been good for Gunn and his alien partner Eyera Kadok (Waits). Their dingy office equipment is being repoed around them. A job is dropped in Gunn’s lap, with enough lettuce on the line to keep him and Kadok in action. He’s been hired by Arnold Dom (Cannavale) to keep an eye on his wife, the multi-media mega star known as Venus Nova (Johannson). Dom tells Gunn that he’s afraid his wife is cheating on him, and he’s got to know if she’s unfaithful. Whatever her secret is, Arnold wants to know it. Dom demands that Ray be as discreet as humanly possible.
Things are rarely as they seem in Metropia, and Ray is crafty. He doesn’t miss much. While Dom suggests that Nova is having an affair, it’s Arnold who is sleeping with Venus’ body-double, the ambitious Levity Love (Donohue). When Nova learns about this betrayal, she is incensed. She lashes out, firing Love on the spot and telling her husband in no uncertain terms “You’re dead to me”. With that she storms away, rattling the room like a hurricane and races off into the night.
Gunn is promptly called into the offices of Barry Vogel (Tudyk), Venus’ manager and her first husband. Dom is her fourth. By way of explanation, Vogel says she’s a bit of a firecracker. He wants Gunn to keep an eye on her, keep her away from Arnold and keep her out of trouble for twenty-four hours. Ray will be rewarded handsomely if he follows instructions.
Nova is approached by a greasy, elephantine, fez-wearing alien named Francis Xavier (Berry), accompanied by his crew of off-world mooks. He wants her to sing at his club if she knows what’s good for her (see?). Venus has secrets she wants kept. If she defies Xavier, they won’t be. Things will get out, and there will be consequences.
Without having a fix on Nova, the pair decide to follow Dom. Unfortunately, at the start of the pursuit, Ray learns that his car has been repossessed. With a sigh, Eyera unfolds spider-like legs and makes his way with alacrity and aplomb through the busy airspace not unlike a certain Peter Parker from another film franchise. He stealthily latches on to the bottom of Arnold’s luxurious flying car and then when they arrive, Kadok sneaks into the opulent abode after Dom parks. Eyera hides under the tremendous bed as Arnold prepares for company.
Ray finds a cheaper mode of transport in the form of a rental jetpack. He follows a bit slower, riding on a noisy trail of fire and smoke.
To Dom’s surprise, the guest is not whom he expected. With the crackling zaps of a few well-placed beam-shots, Arnold drops dead. After mostly witnessing a murder, Eyera bolts out from under the bed, aiming for the window under fire. He catches a shot in his shoulder, falls out the pane, and tumbles through the sky.
Puttering along with his jetpack, Gunn looks up and sees his wounded partner, his friend, falling and dives headlong in pursuit. Catching Kadok on the fly, Ray pushes the jetpack to its limits to get help. The nearest ER refuses to treat Eyera. They only serve mankind. Gunn gets Kadok to an alien-friendly hospital, and they stabilize him.
The apartment Arnold was in belongs to Levity Love. Dom was murdered in his mistress’ bedroom. Nova is the number one suspect. Ray realizes this is not exactly keeping Venus out of trouble. He’d better figure this all out before Vogel decides to cancel his retainer.
Why would two men married to the same woman at separate times hire Gunn for essentially the same job days apart? Will the person who killed Dom come for Kadok, hoping to silence a possible witness? What does Xavier have on Nova? Also, there’s that beautiful ginger Gunn keeps running into; is she involved somehow? Can Ray get to the roots of this mystery? Please see Ray Gunn to find out.
“Every time it hurts, I’ll think of you.”
Ray Gunn is a very pretty picture. The textures are spectacular; there’s great luminosity, excellent use of color and bloom. The animation moves well; there’s a good flow to it, mirroring the propellants in Michael Giacchino’s groovy score. Unfortunately, the architecture of the city and mechanical designs feel derivative. Bird says he’s been working on this movie for decades, and in this respect, it shows. There are a lot of movies that have gotten to Ur very similar neon-soaked, crisscrossed skylines and airborne car aerodynamics long before Bird began to lay down drafts of Metropia’s avenues for Netflix.
The rotten secret at the heart of the whole rotten town is that it runs on anti-alien prejudice (and the multi-media corporation that wants to replace its most talented top draw with a more pliant, responsive program). In this smoke-filled, neo-noir setting, everyone has the time to be running scams on everyone else because the alien underclass is doing all the work. Even they’re on the chopping block, as ever-more-intrusive advertisements crafted by AI that chase Gunn from scene to scene are encroaching on the workforce.
Rockwell, Johansson and Waits mesh well together. Waits is fantastic as the world-weary Eyera; Rockwell infuses the cynical Gunn with a tiny spark, a smoldering ember of hope that he hasn’t given up on just yet. Johannson sizzles as a multifaceted Femme Fatale, a sultry, stage-ruling crooner who has Ray wrapped around her finger and is hiding something profound.
The slimy, Fez-wearing, space- mobster Francis Xavier is a nod to Sydney Greenstreet’s Signor Ferrari from the classic 1942 Michael Curtiz movie, Casablanca. The Atompunk aesthetic is consistent and highly polished, if not incredibly original. The cop car chase in the final reel is another piece heavily influenced by The Fifth Element. It’s cute that Ray’s prized possession is an A113 particle blaster, making Ray Gunn the next animated feature keeping the A113 gag alive. The neo-noir genre elements are mostly respected. There’s a bit of levity, but everything is on the level, until suddenly, it isn’t.
This reviewer enjoyed Ray Gunn quite a bit and was all in; then towards the end, that aforementioned silly, stretched-thin, slapstick body-horror segment slapped this reviewer right out of his immersion. It is a strange choice and in this reviewer’s opinion, Bird’s film would be SO much better had it been left on the cutting room floor. Ray Gunn is a mostly good movie. Its mystery is engaging; for a story written years ago, its themes and topics are strangely relevant today. Unfortunately, it is a flawed film.
Ray Gunn is in (very) limited release at the BFI London Film Festival 10/10/2026
Ray Gunn is in theatres in America 12/04/2026
Ray Gunn will stream on Netflix 12/18/2026.
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