Sam Rockwell voices the gumshoe who becomes embroiled with Scarlett Johansson’s femme fatale in this big-hearted and beautifully designed fantasy spectacular

Brad Bird, the Spielberg of animation, applies his masterly authorial touch to a terrific family film that retrieves the genre from the doldrums of dull, AI-formulaic stories and visuals. This animation is smart, witty, humane: a fantasy spectacular with old-fashioned entertainment values and some amazing cityscape design showcasing a beguiling and sweet romance.

The setting is a city of marvels in a world to come, a retro-futurist urban landscape with hints of Metropolis and Blade Runner; there are plenty of regulation moving walkways, flying cars and eerie hologram billboards, yes, but a light touch to put the fun back into what could be just cliche. Here is where an old-school noir thriller is to take place with tough private detectives and bad guys wielding state-of-the-art laser-particle firearms (this explains the title, though I’d hoped that it might also include some reference to 1980s Republican politics). There are careworn cops, cynical club owners and alluring shady ladies with touches of Lana Turner and Veronica Lake. The airborne automobiles also have the bulbous lines of a previous century, and the TV monitors show black-and-white images; plasma flatscreens have evidently been disinvented.

McDonagh’s latest film has Malkovich and Rockwell shooting the breeze as CIA agents in 1973 on Easter Island. They discuss grandchildren, swimming with turtles and who shot JFK

‘Earmuffs!” says Sam Rockwell, pausing his gushing tribute mid-flow and turning to face John Malkovich on the couch. Rockwell loves Malkovich and has been discussing his work at some length. Malkovich, he says, is charismatic and dangerous, half masculine, half feminine; a unique combination and the perfect sparring partner. He’s one of the world’s finest actors and annoyingly modest to boot. “Earmuffs!” says Rockwell and pivots back towards me. “He hates hearing all this. That’s why I keep saying ‘earmuffs’.”

Malkovich frowns. “I don’t mind it,” he says.