Ray Gunn Review: Brad Bird's Animated Film Noir Is a Sweeping, Kid-Friendly Mystery Worth Seeing

Ray Gunn is a big sweeping story with gorgeous animation and fantastic performances by the cast, and both of us came away recommending it. It's pretty much your stereotypical gumshoe movie, with a mystery, red herrings and misdirection, but it's done in a kid-friendly way that makes it a fun introduction to film noir.

The setup: in Metropolis, a gigantic city in an alternate future as seen from 1939, private eye Ray Gunn is drawn into a case involving aliens, murder and a multimedia star named Venus Nova. It was a dark and stormy night, and this feels like the movie that warranted a line like that.

Ray Gunn starts as a simple private eye story and keeps unraveling

This is a Netflix feature-length animation from award-winning director Brad Bird, and it's such a fun way to tell a private eye story with that retrofuturistic aesthetic. Going in, the expectation was that it would be just a little story about a detective down on his luck until he gets his next big break, and how he'll make do until then.

Instead, things just continue to unravel, right up until the very end. By the time it's over, you feel like you went on a journey, and it was fun. It's colorful too, and the cast is really amazing, with Sam Rockwell and Scarlett Johansson as the leads.

Tom Waits plays Ira, probably the favorite character in the movie. Ira was really fun. In the city, Ray Gunn is a private detective and Ira, his associate, is an alien.

Brad Bird's 30-year story uses Ira and the aliens to explore second-class citizens

Brad Bird had this story about 30 years in the making, so good on him for continuing to push to get his movie made, and he finally got it done.

Going back to the partnership between Ray and Ira, there is some resentment from the humans toward the alien race, and the film makes that very clear. A lot of it relates to social matters, and the aliens really do kind of represent second-class citizens. They carry that sense of illegitimacy. Immigrants, basically, and how they're treated. Very much so.

Ray Gunn could be the movie that introduces kids to film noir

The movie has a lot of moving parts to it, and the mystery, red herrings and misdirection are kind of fun. The way M3GAN is kind of the movie you'd want to introduce your kids to horror with, this is kind of the movie you'd want to introduce your kids to film noir with, to the gumshoe and the private investigator story.

It has all the same pieces: the damsel, the movie star, the plot twists, the mafia and all of the crime. It has all of those parts, but it's done in a kid-friendly way. It's not made for kids, but it's definitely a kid-friendly kind of movie, and there were a lot of fun parts in there.

Sam Rockwell disappears into the voice of Ray Gunn

The casting is done very well, and it was great hearing all the voices. It feels like Sam Rockwell really just knocks it out of the park. Sometimes when you hear a voice performance, you can pick up little nuances in the way an actor pronounces this and that word.

That wasn't the case with how Sam Rockwell voiced Ray Gunn. He disappeared into the character, as he does with most of his performances. If nobody had said it was Sam Rockwell, it probably wouldn't have been possible to pick it up. But once you know, you can hear it and say, "Ah, that's who it is."

The mystery snowballs, though it lags and gets convoluted at times

It was nice that this was a big sweeping story: Ray Gunn trying to crack the case, then the red herring, then a murder, and the suspense builds as you wonder how he's going to solve it. There's a damsel, and you want to know who she is and why she's important.

That's kind of what kept things engaging throughout the whole movie. It wasn't just one thing happening. There's this, then there's also that, then there's one more element, and it keeps snowballing until the very end, where you're kind of wondering how they're going to end it. The way it ends is kind of a nice picture, but it's also kind of the perfect ending for this movie.

All of the endings and moments really do kind of fit into the cliche, but it's really cool to see them in a new light. It's very Maltese Falcon, very Chinatown, but once again, very kid-friendly. The characters are very fun and vibrant.

There were some moments where the movie did kind of start to lag, and you're kind of thinking, okay, let's get to the point here, which way are we going again? There are moments where it gets a little convoluted, but then it gets back on track.

Ray Gunn's red herrings pay off

The ending raised the question of how they were going to pull it off, and then they show what they did, and you're left thinking, why didn't I pick that up? I should have seen that.

The movie was good at that, and the red herrings were really good. We've seen the film noir kind of story before, so you go in betting that certain things will show up. One of them was guessed correctly, but not everything else that happened, and the takeaway was, "oh, I see what you did there, you clever little bunnies." That's something that was really enjoyable.

Metropolis itself becomes a character alongside Venus Nova

On the animation, there are big colorful characters. There's Ray, and there's Venus Nova, the pop star whose face is plastered everywhere and who is selling albums. She's like a futuristic Taylor Swift, if you will. All these characters are larger than life, but what really stood out is that the movie also kind of made the city itself into a character, with its architecture and everything else. Definitely pay attention to that.

Seeing the trailer and the flying cars for the first time, the immediate thought was The Fifth Element. It does kind of have that kind of vibe, with the flying cars, but a little bit more retro. We really liked how they brought the city to life, along with the vibrancy, the colors and the cool way they made the technology work while still feeling kind of old timey.

Brad Bird says what feels current in Ray Gunn probably isn't

Something Brad Bird said during the Q&A really resonated. On the social commentary and on how the city was developed to fit that retro but futuristic vibe, he said, "Whatever you think is current probably isn't." He added that some of the things are going to sound really current, but that's not what they are.

That was interesting, and the takeaway was: so you're saying things like this have been happening. The social commentary fit so perfectly with the present that it seems like they were writing it with certain events in mind, but it was written so long ago. The movie touches on AI a little bit, surveillance a little bit, and having second-class citizens. A lot of it really does resonate, and they tell it in a good, interesting way.

The jetpacks and Venus Nova's music number show off the technology

The technology of the city is also really cool. You can insert a dollar, essentially, to use the jetpacks, which was reminiscent of the Lime and Bird scooters we have now, with some just abandoned and plopped over on the side of the road.

A favorite use of the futuristic technology probably came during one of Venus Nova's music videos. It's a really catchy song, and she has an angel and devil aesthetic, with her dress and headdress changing through lighting design. That was so cool, and you can 100% see that somehow being done at a mega concert.

Scarlett Johansson did all of the singing, because apparently she's an amazing singer. It seems she has sung before, and that had come up, but in this one it really hit home that she's actually a really good singer.

Our verdict: Ray Gunn is worth seeing in theaters or on Netflix

Ray Gunn is going to be in select theaters and also on Netflix, so you can see it in either format. It doesn't seem like we get to see a film noir style in animation too often. That's not to say those films don't exist, but something of this length is pretty cool to witness, and that earned it our recommendation.

On the other side, it was a lot of fun too and definitely worth seeing, especially if you want to get your kids into film noir and murder mystery gumshoe movies. It's fun, and it will probably get a second watch when it comes to Netflix, landing on the same rating.

Would you introduce younger family members to film noir with Ray Gunn?