Renaissance 3/5 reviewed by Ben

Corey once showed me the trailer for "Renaissance" and I was blown away by it--a fully animated feature in stark black and white--it looked to good to be true--like I was watching some of my favorite graphic novels in action. Indeed the visuals will rock your face off--too bad so many other elements pull this film down to a merely average level.

The movie is a French film, and thus takes place in an imagined future Paris. The story is a fairly generic crime noir tale--a girl is kidnapped, a "too tough for the rules" cop is called in to investigate, and gets caught up in a giant corporate conspiracy that threatens our very way of life.

The visuals are truly astounding--right from the first few shots of the city you'll be blown away by how freakin' cool everything looks. The attention paid to textures is amazing, and the way everything is rendered in only shadows and highlights is simply astounding. It's an amazing visual experience. However, there are a few nit-picky details about the animation that will bother some people. All of the characters were animated using Motion Capture technology thats been used in tons of animated films and videogames. While this technology is impressive, it's far from perfect, and the characters don't always emote, or "act" just right. Sometimes, there's some wierd shakiness to people, like the kind you see in videogame cutscenes. Most of the time, the motion feels natural, although, when people are running full speed, you can tell something's not quite right. As impressive as "Renaissance" is, the animation technology still has a ways to go before all the bugs are worked out of it. Some people have said that the stark contrast of the film gets old, or gets disturbing after a while, but I disagree, I loved the look of the film all the way through, although if you're not used to seeing this kind of art, which is popular in many graphic novels, then it might grate on you at first.

As amazing as the visuals are, the story is just dissapointing. It's just so... generic. This plot has been done time and time again in so many noir stories. It's full of cliches, and the twists are easy to spot long before they are revealed. The pacing, or complete lack of momentum, is also a problem for this film. The plot moves along at a snails pace, and theres almost never a sense of immediacy, or danger, like the best detective stories. Then again, these problems might be soley due to the odd soundtrack. The score itself is perfect--but in all the wrong places. Unimportant scenes have swelling orchestral movements, and crucial emotional moments are left blank. It literally seemed like a mistake. I got the impression that someone had taken the score, choppped it up, and redistributed it over the movie, putting the sharp emotional moments into the dull filler scenes, and leaving the critical moments empty. Not only is this confusing and disorienting, but it destroys the flow and momentum of the film. Maybe, with a better soundtrack, the movie would have felt paced better.

Another factor that really holds "Renaissance" back has to do with dialouge and voice acting--but before I complain about that, I want to say clearly that this movie is a dub. It was originally a french language film, and the version they are showing in theatres here is an english dub that features dry, clunky dialouge, and bad voice acting. It sounds like these actors were bored out of their skulls while recording this stuff. I'm incredibly eager to get the DVD and check out a subtitled version that retains the French voice acting to see if it's any better. I've never had good experience with dubbed movies, so it's possible that the dialouge and voice work is actually good in the original version.

Overally, the movie is a visual treat, and it's WELL worth your $8 just to look at it's beauty. I might even go again just to enjoy the art. I really wanted to give this movie a "4," but its story cliches, momentum issues, and dubbing problems really pulled it down into the realm of the average. But hey, it's still way better than most stuff out there now, so go check it out and treat your eyes to something astounding.

See this movie if:
-You enjoy breathtaking visuals, and want to see a new, innovative, and simply cool way of making movies.
-You like anything in the genre of crime noir detective stories, or you're into the "cyberpunk" sci-fi stuff
-You wanna impress your girlfriend by going to see a French film

Don't see this movie if:
-You're not into the Noir genre
-You're looking for a light comedy or romance movie. But you can probably tell that from looking at the poster.
-You're expecting an edge-of-your-seat action thriller