Having helmed some of the best animated features of all time, any new Brad Bird movie comes to us with very high expectations. That’s because we know how watching The Iron Giant, Ratatouille, or The Incredibles makes us feel, and we want to feel that again. Bird’s latest film, Ray Gunn, is highly entertaining and lovely to look at, but lacks that emotional resonance Bird achieved with his previous work. The result is a solid, fun, sci-fi detective movie that left us feeling a little cold.
Set in a hybrid world blending old-school film noir and sci-fi futurism called Metropia, Ray Gunn (voiced by Sam Rockwell) is a former cop turned private detective who is too moral for his own good. He could easily sell out and become a bad guy, but he doesn’t want to, and as a result, he and his partner, the one-eyed alien named Eye-Ra (Tom Waits), are struggling to make ends meet.
That changes when they get wrapped up in the behind-the-scenes drama of a mega pop star named Venus Nova (Scarlett Johansson). Nova is basically the Taylor Swift of this world, and everything she does is seen under a microscope. So when her husband blackmails her, and then he ends up dead, clearly, it’s a massive event.
More than anything else, Ray Gunn is a detective story. Ray and Eye-Ra investigate Venus’s world to try to solve the murder, which then opens up several other mysteries. Those threads often lead to fun action scenes, including one that would feel more comfortable in the new Resident Evil movie (this is a compliment) and some flying car chase sequences that would make George Lucas proud.
Along the way, Ray and Venus slowly become less professional and get more personal, which leads to lots of witty banter and a standout dancing scene. Much of that relationship works because Rockwell and Johansson are both so effortlessly charismatic, and the Skydance Animation team has beautifully worked that into their performances.
And yet, as Ray Gunn‘s narrative gets more intricate, with multiple twists and turns, you can’t help but feel something is missing. Ray is a fun character. Venus has some depth to her. But they both exist more to serve the plot instead of vice versa. We’re told things about each character, but they rarely resonate. As a result, the movie feels empty. It looks good. You’re not bored. But flashing an occasional smile is not the same as feeling something for the characters.
Which, maybe, was not the intent. Bird isn’t required to make every movie a tearjerker like The Iron Giant or joyfully heartfelt like Ratatouille. There doesn’t need to be a massive, overpouring of emotions. He’s very welcome to simply tell a propulsive story that keeps the audience guessing. Ray Gunn does that and does it well. But without truly wrapping us up in these characters, the movie loses a little something.
Ray Gunn just had its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival. It opens in select theaters on December 4 and debuts on Netflix on December 18.
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