Review: Brad Bird’s ‘Ray Gunn’ zooms into a retro-noir future
The film is a wild, animated ride that breaks little new ground.
Brad Bird’s retro-future noir detective adventure Ray Gunn has been percolating for years, and audiences are finally getting a look at the end product in advance of its Netflix release Dec. 4. The film was screened at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science Oct. 25 as part of the Denver Film Festival, giving local audiences a chance not just to see it early, but on the big screen.
Call it an animated, less gritty Blade Runner if you want, but Ray Gunn’s roots come directly from Raymond Chandler and his hard-boiled detective Philip Marlowe. The tough guy with a heart of gold and a penchant for doing the right thing even when it hurts him in the wallet is voiced by the great Sam Rockwell. Unlike Marlowe, Ray has a partner — a one-eyed alien named Eye-Ra who’s brought to life with the gravelly, world-weary voice of Tom Waits.
In Ray’s world, flying cars that look like sleek but ancient Buicks are juxtaposed with rotary phones (although they are wireless), and other mismatched tech to give the film its signature look. Elevators blast off like rockets, jetpacks are in wide use, and the .38 gats of Marlowe’s day are replaced by often-malfunctioning blasters.
Eye-Ra (Tom Waits) and Ray Gunn (Sam Rockwell) in ‘Ray Gunn.’ | Image: Skydance Animation
A fun ride
Bird, who set high-water marks directing films like The Iron Giant, Ratatouille and The Incredibles, wrote the script with Matthew Robbins. And while its derivative DNA means it’s not breaking much new ground plot-wise, the action sequences and reliably witty dialogue make for a fun ride start to finish.
Where Ray Gunn does depart from the source material is with the society in which Ray lives. It’s a world where aliens and humans coexist, but not everyone’s happy about it. In one scene when Eye-Ra is shot, Ray rushes him to the nearest ER, but the doctors refuse to treat an alien and he must hurry him to a hospital that does.
That alien racism issue carries over to the femme fatale character — a pop star named Venus Nova voiced by Scarlett Johansson. As these things go, the gumshoe gets in over his head immediately, and within the space of a day he’s gone from not knowing her to being her sole protector and love interest. But Venus has a secret, leading to an ending that’s startlingly reminiscent of how Blade Runner ended up.
Like so many modern action films, Ray Gunn feels it must work double-time as the film races toward its conclusion. Some of these sequences are quite inventive, like a scene in an elevator involving Ray, a couple of thugs and a type of ray gun that captures people whole and allows the user to shoot them out in another place. Others, like the extended flying car chase at the end, feel repetitive at best and leave us exhausted.
Ray Gunn lacks the urgency of something like The Incredibles, where the very survival of the family is at stake. It’s still an enjoyable entertainment, but it’s unlikely any tears will be shed by audience members moved by a powerful, emotional scene. The fact that the film is produced by the Ellison-owned Skydance Animation also adds an unwelcome footnote. But that’s show biz nowadays.
