Brad Bird's Ray Gunn Debuts in London After 30-Year Journey

Ray Gunn has taken Brad Bird three decades to bring to life. Reporting on its London Film Festival debut on October 8, Deadline Hollywood described the animated feature as the end of a 30-year journey for the filmmaker.

The project combines detective noir with an imagined future. IndieWire Movies described it as a jetpack-powered story that Bird, the filmmaker behind The Iron Giant and The Incredibles, had been developing for decades.

On October 8, attention centred on Bird's long route to the festival. Alongside the debut, he discussed finally making Ray Gunn at a BFI London Film Festival talk, according to The Hollywood Reporter. His conversation also covered his live-action work and The Incredibles 3.

By October 10, reviews were testing the finished film against that long anticipation. The Hollywood Reporter described a story about a golden-hearted private eye hired to wrangle a volatile starlet. Its review identified Sam Rockwell and Scarlett Johansson among the cast, alongside Tom Waits and Bobby Cannavale, and Skydance Animation's John Lasseter as a producer.

Some critics found the combination exhilarating. /Film called the film heartfelt and visually dazzling, praising its blend of crime noir and classic science fiction. Deadline Hollywood likewise welcomed the science-fiction and film-noir mashup, framing Rockwell and Johansson's pairing in the tradition of Bogart and Bacall.

Others were less persuaded. IndieWire Movies found the result immersive but too sprawling, with a muddled message. Variety Movies described a giddy futuristic noir with more energy than charm, while Screen Rant argued that the mystery loses its way towards a moral message.

The London debut marks the arrival of a project that has occupied Bird for decades, but the first reviews offer no critical consensus. The sharpest contrast is between /Film, which sees a visually dazzling success, and The Hollywood Reporter, which calls the Netflix animated neo-noir forgettable.

The recurring fault line is storytelling rather than ambition. The futuristic setting draws praise for immersion from IndieWire Movies, yet that same review questions the film's scale and message. Screen Rant also finds a gap between the detective story and the moral point it is trying to make.