The characterization is stellar. Rockwell’s down-on-his-luck decency makes Gunn a winning lead, but Johansson really delights as a potential femme fatale, Venus. From her on-stage singing performances to her romantic scenes and wild tempests, Johansson’s deep voice freights a train load of emotion through the whole piece.
Eye-Ra is also a hit. Tom Waits was the first actor cast, and his contribution helps weave everything into place. His warmed-up, worn-out voice is more American than apple pie and cigarettes, and it masterfully fixes the universe to the frame. His cyclopean insights into where they are all finding themselves are as wry and pretty as it gets. He was a smash.
Also, shouts out to Alan Tudyk, who gives nothing but net as some shifty corporate brass, and Matt Berry in a lovely turn as crime lord Francis Xavier; Sidney Greenstreet as a slug in a fez.
All of the action is inspired well by the setting. The fights and the shootouts in particular have an unexpectedly hot energy, like Looney Tunes with heavy lasers. Of course, Bird’s biggest directing foray outside animation remains 2011’s Mission: Impossible- Ghost Protocol, Skydance’s first crack at a tentpole picture, so I guess that’s where this all started.
Crime lord Francis Xavier holds court with his henchmen at his side in Ray Gunn.
“Visually, the film is inventive throughout and pops with gorgeous color…”
There was a tiny, retreating cadre of boos to the Skydance logo at the start of my screening, which seemed poor form. Skydance has taken money from making Tom Cruise films people wanted to see and used it to buy two companies that seemed to insist one shouldn’t. Hopefully they can be forgiven for this. At a meta level, it tracks well with the Atlas Shrugged visual mélange that Ray Gunn’s retro sci-fi aesthetic might replicate here and there.
In any event, this film rocks, and hopefully heralds new vows for mass market art, and perhaps a re-appraisal of the worst misapprehensions recently as to what makes pop tick? It is certainly fun.
Of course, the fact that Ray Gunn’s plot inquires about the specter of AI replacing craft is timely, but given the stretch they made to seal the sale, it does now pose the 120-billion-dollar question of whether they will always be able to ask honestly. Time alone will tell. They are certainly off to a roaring start.
Ray Gunn 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.
"…an unexpectedly hot energy, like Looney Tunes with heavy lasers."
