'Ray Gunn': Brad Bird's animated noir holds world premiere in London
The Netflix film featuring the voices of Sam Rockwell and Scarlett Johansson screened at the BFI London Film Festival. Early reviews are mixed.
Archive image · Photo: The Conmunity - Pop Culture Geek from Los Angeles, CA, USA / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 (cropped and resized)
Brad Bird's animated feature 'Ray Gunn' had its world premiere on Saturday at the 70th BFI London Film Festival. The director of 'The Iron Giant' and 'The Incredibles' tells a science-fiction crime story in the style of film noir: in the giant city of Metropia, a vision of the future as imagined from 1939, Ray Gunn, the last human private eye, investigates a case involving aliens, murder and the star Venus Nova.
Sam Rockwell voices the title character and Scarlett Johansson the singer Venus Nova, with Tom Waits, Matt Berry and Bobby Cannavale among the supporting cast. Skydance Animation produced the film, and Michael Giacchino composed the score. Bird first developed the idea in the 1990s.
Early reviews are mixed: according to a round-up by World of Reel, The Guardian gave it a top five-star rating and IGN 8 out of 10, while The Playlist and The A.V. Club gave it a C and The Hollywood Reporter was negative. The film opens in select US theaters on Dec. 4 and streams on Netflix from Dec. 18.