Ray Gunn opens in select theaters on December 4 and arrives on Netflix on December 18. The film premiered on October 10 at the London Film Festival.

A 30-odd-year passion project for director Brad Bird, Ray Gunn is a nifty sci-fi/film noir mashup that’s sumptuously designed and cleverly realized, but is slightly dinged by an overlong runtime and occasionally clunky story.

Set in the vast futuristic city of Metropia, Ray Gunn follows its titular private eye (voiced by Sam Rockwell) as he and his one-eyed alien partner, Eye-Ra (Tom Waits), investigate a case involving the world’s biggest pop star, Venus Nova (Scarlett Johansson), that leads to murder, corruption and other nefarious things. If that sounds pretty gritty for an animated film from the director of The Incredibles and Ratatouille, it is.

Ray Gunn definitely leans toward a slightly older demographic than the broader audience of Bird’s past films for Pixar, which is perfectly fine since animation can obviously be more than just one kind of movie made specifically for children. While it may not be a zany animated comedy for the whole family, Ray Gunn still offers its share of cartoon hijinks for anyone who does watch it with their kids. Ray’s particle blaster pistol yields some raucous moments that would otherwise be considered body horror in a more serious film, and there’s a little alien version of essentially a French bulldog that satisfies the cute factor.

The alien designs are rather familiar but appropriate for the world these characters inhabit.

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