User reviews

A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report, Blade Runner, Sin City and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow – if you are a fan of any of these then this will be well worth checking out.

French animation project 'Renaissance' took seven years to make on a shoestring budget and tonight I finally got to see it at a private screening for the International Film Festival in Stockholm. My spontaneous reaction is awe; my further reflection is 'huh, neat' and closer analysis regrettably gets a resounding 'meh'. It is a gorgeous science fiction triumph on the surface, but scratch it or even poke it a little and its unnecessarily complex plot becomes glaringly apparent, as do the flat characters.

Nevertheless it is clear that the people at Onyx films have done something spectacular with the aforementioned surface. The visuals are staggering. They have used live action motion capture fitted into key-frame animation, with stark jet black and bright white contrasts and a heavily shadowed rotoscoped background. For those of you who are not down with the 'technical lingo', the film looks like a fully-animated Sin City. Its fluid, transparent, dark and stylized template is complemented by great lurid lightning. It's a vision. Yet much credit is also due to the crisp sound effects that take the form of humming futuristic weapons, suspenseful music, heavy raindrops and glass shards breaking. It's every tech-nerd's wet dream...

The film zooms in on an eerily-lit, bleak, futurescape Paris in which a major corporation called 'Avalon' has begun to interweave in the lives of the citizens with surveillance (think the fluid transparent screens from Minority Report) and genetic engineering. The latter leads to a mysterious kidnapping of young researcher Ilona (voiced by the lovely Romola Garai). Cut to our hard-boiled cop-on-suspension and protagonist Karas (Daniel Craig) – a man who takes the law into his own hands – who is assigned the case of finding and retrieving Ilona. During this case, he is being aided by Illona's sister with whom he also begins a love affair. A very half-assed love affair, if I may say so.

The world of Renaissance is remarkable. Director Christian Volckman takes a fair jab at melting the noir themes and the result is an urban jungle filled with cads, rats, femme fatales and lonely detectives that hide in the shadows of the seedy slum. The problem is that the creators undoubtedly felt the need to have extremely clear and spelled-out archetypes in the story, or the film would have been "too surreal" for mainstream audiences, owing to its lurid animation format. It follows then that we have a multitude of clichéd characters such as evil-laughing villains, sleazy crime bosses and butch tough-chicks who blow smoke every chance they get. It shoves noir in our faces, and it isn't necessary.

What is worse is that the dialogue is a little contrived. It seems as though every line exists for the sole reason of propelling the plot. This is nothing fatal because the plot is so complex once it gets going that it needs some clear direction. Daniel Craig helps here too by bringing a no-nonsense attitude to his hard-edged cop character. At one point in Renaissance, he is seen in a vivid car-chase that surely is one of the most adrenaline-pumping and top notch sequences of the film. Unfortunately, the novelty of the sci-fi visuals have worn off post this car chase and 'Renassaince' could benefit from being slightly shorter. In summary, a very interesting but flawed futuristic comic book experience.

7 out of 10

I've seen this film in avant-premiere at Imagina Festival in Monaco.

I saw the first trailer four years ago, and from this moment, I was waiting to see the final result. I haven't been disappointed.

It is a full 3d movie with a high contrasted black and white render. Clearly inspired by some comic books, such as the ones from F. Miller. In this optic, it goes one step further than the excellent "Sin City" adaptation from R. Rodriguez. This time, (almost) no Grey or any middle color, but a graphic style never seen before in a realistic animated film.(can't wait for scanner darkly)

The massive use of Motion Capture gives a lot of life and credibility to the characters and we forget really soon the technical aspect to concentrate on more classic elements, such as direction or plot. The direction stays sober and controlled despite the infinite possibilities of the medium, and that is a really good surprise.

The futuristic story (Paris 2053) makes it a classic sci-fiction movie and maintain the viewer interested till the end. Despite a classic base plot (an investigation that goes far beyond initial expectations)the atmosphere and some interesting recurring themes (genetics, absolute power of certain firms...)gives this movie a great interest.

Despite it is an animated film, this one is obviously not made for children. You won't find here any funny pet or any stupid family moral, only the cold reality. It is far closer to a good film noir.

I found that the setting is one of the best aspect of the film: we still feel the well known Paris, but it is morphed by a fine touch of futurism.

Nevertheless, I regret a few mistakes. The montage is sometimes a bit flat, one or two very cliché slow motion effects and some poor dialogs. Even though the technical is excellent, it shows its limits in some romantic sequences (a bit like "final fantasy" did). Those little things makes it a 7/10.

Altogether, it is a successful artistic challenge that you have to watch if you can. The director, Christian Volckman, knows how not to fall into potential traps (luckyly, they didn't ask John Woo to do the job!).

To conclude, it is a film with blasting visuals, an intelligent story and a wonderful art direction. Watch it if you can!

Please excuse me for the spelling mistakes.

One reason Pixar has endured so well, and been so successful, is that while their films remain technical marvels and visual mosaics, they have a story to match their style. And often very moving style at that: affecting, charming and cross-generational. That a lot Anime (speaking in broad terms) and a great many other animations fail to match their technical virtuosity with real substance is, I think (and I might be wrong) partly because either the makers aren't bothered with character and plot and focus far too much on sound and image, or the sheer effort that goes into making some animations is so enormous, so enervating that they don't have the energy to create a really engaging story.

That same cannot be said of Renaissance. There are flaws in its plot, but I'll get to that later. Those same flaws, however, are not reflected in the visuals - Renaissance is nowt short of stunning. The ultra-high contrast images (sometimes so high-contrast that is nothing but one face or one beam of light visible) and incredible detail are always impressive, always a joy to behold. The futuristic Paris on display is the grim offspring of Blade Runner and Brave New World; dark, murky, quite affluent and even clean, but shrouded in intrigue, corporate malfeasance, obsessed with beauty (capital of the catwalk, after all) and disguising the squalor and neglect of its labyrinthine passages with a veneer of monumental, sophisticated architecture.

It's a compelling environment, not entirely original, but great all the same. The film's much-touted 'motion-capture' technology and incredible attention to human and design minutiae result in images a black-and-white photographer would die for. Not that the detail prevents entertainment, because Christian Volckman crafts some superb action sequences: a hell-for-leather care chase, a couple of gruesome(ly imaginative) murders, several tussles in the dark and a nasty dust-up in a gloomy apartment. The locations are great, too (I want to visit the nightclub). While the central character of Karas is your regular off-the-shelf maverick cop, the other two female characters (who are sisters) are the real motors of the movie. Coming from war-torn Eastern Europe, products of a war, diaspora and a family spat, they're a compelling metaphor for Europe as a whole.

The film is tremendously atmospheric, its dizzying, swooping faux-camera moves and adult tone making for a very engaging experience. However, the plot... It never becomes more interesting than the initial hook, in which indefatigable plod Karas must find Ilona Tasuiev, a drop-dead gorgeous and pioneering scientist, after she's snatched from the street. The sinister corporation Avalon (is ANY corporation ever not sinister?), which she was working for on 'classified', projects are hell-bent on her retrieval, and soon Karas is up to his neck in official reprimands, dead bodies, cigarette-smoke and narrowly-missed bullets, and falling in love with Ilona's sister Bislane (very sympathetically voiced by Catherine McCormack), as he plumbs the depths of the city's sordid underbelly (and his own past).

Text-book noir, in other words, but while I enjoyed the film a lot more than Sin City (to which it bears a passing visual resemblance), the plot and resolution are dull, the theme of immortality being raised but never examined, and the shenanigans of high-rolling Avalon CEO Paul Dellenbach are also dull , undercutting a lot of the dramatic tension. The basic ideas are familiar sci-fi genre materials, and there's a nagging sense that the visuals and atmosphere are disguising the mundane material.

However, the film as a whole is lucid and perfectly coherent, even if some of the scenarios the characters get into occasionally feel like excuses for displays of technical wizardry. But it's the projection of life in Paris circa 2054, the vision of community and creation of another city from the ground up that makes this film something to behold. I may be taking it too seriously, and if that's the case I can at least say that it's superbly made, extremely entertaining (and pretty mature, too), and with an ambiance like no other.

Renaissance deftly walks the line between mainstream American animation and Japanese anime. There are no annoying animals here to perform lame songs written by has-been musicians and no esoteric detours through alternate dimensions. Instead, Renaissance is a gritty, innovatively drawn thriller with an engaging central story.

The film's greatest asset is its stunning "film noir" animation. The animators have created a distinctive and haunting look through the use of a black & white colour scheme and the constant manipulation of shadow and light. The result is something akin to an animated lino cut or a manga version of Sin City. Equally impressive is the film's ability to move seamlessly from simple two dimensional outlines to scenes involving the most intricate animation imaginable. This is displayed to good effect during an extended car chase in the middle of Renaissance which contains the kind of dazzling animation usually only seen in the works of Otomo, Oshii and Miyazaki.

Regardless of the calibre of the animation, the film would become boring very quickly without an involving storyline. Renaissance also succeeds in this department with an interesting, if unnecessarily convoluted, plot revolving around a corporate kidnapping and demented scientists. The film benefits greatly from a winning central character in Karas, an unorthodox cop voiced in the English version by Daniel Craig. The voice work and dubbing are generally good, with Catherine McCormack particularly impressive as the voice of Bislane.

Renaissance is one of the best animated film aimed at adults not to originate from Japan. The pace is brisk, the tone is evocative and the direction manages to be effortlessly stylish. Highly recommended for the anti-Pixar crowd.

First things first, this movie is achingly beautiful. A someone who works on 3D CG films as a lighter/compositor, the visuals blew me away. Every second I was stunned by what was on screen As for the story, well, it's okay. It's not going to set the world on fire, but if you like your futuristic Blade Runner-esquire tales (and who doesn't?) then you will be fine.

I do have to say that I felt the voice acting was particularly bland and detracted from the movie as a whole. I saw it at the cinema in English, but I am hoping that there is a French version floating around somewhere.

Definitely worth seeing.

Actullay a 6.5. It's not a 7 (=good,8=very good, 9=excellent, 10=perfect) and little better than a 6 (=average) but 1/2s are not allowed here.

Saw this at TIFF. The visual seems like having Sin City the comic book animated. With fluid movements, play off reflected images, shot angles, ...etc it is obvious how much thought is put into the presentation. And at times this could be distracting ... or it might be good see this twice ..... once for visuals, once for story... however...the story ..... hmmmmm is another story.

The story is a noirish styled detective investigation with plenty of pulp(and clichéd) dialogue to match. There's the "fearless, not your regular detective scene","I'm handing in my badge scene", and the slow "falling for the 'bad' dame" sequence.

Nice and distracting as the visuals is, at least twice, the plot holes took me out of the story. A lot of convenient delays just so the hero can discover all the secrets. There are some Blade Runner homage or references, and the future Paris setting adds more grounding feeling to the story, except the version I saw everyone spoke English so .. kind of doesn't fit, in that respect.

Back to the visuals a bit. The only strange thing is that all the non-human parts are very realistic but the human faces are kind of cartoonish. An maybe it's just me, Johanathan Price's voice is so distinct that the character seems kind of ... having an out-of-the-body experience.

Every second of the film is gorgeous. And that's why it earns a 7, because the plot is not especially devious, and thinking back over the last 90 minutes I never really felt any excitement or investment in the characters. If anything, the luxurious graphics and framing have made certain scenes (the car chase, for instance) more pedestrian than they ought to be - not that they don't look lovely and have some very original design and occasionally novel camera angles - but they are missing the kinetic movement and close-up shots that are part of the language for any normal action/thriller. The first hour plods along, and the dialogue feels very edited and a bit stagey - people wait for each other to finish and don't always react in a natural cadence, which would be a problem of recording each individual's dialogue separately. On rare occasions the emotions in the voices don't quite match those on screen; something that should really have been avoided. The futuristic architecture is very attractive (lots of glass walls/ceilings/screens, lovely smoke/mirage/special effects) and nice-looking cars, but again - it's more an exercise in graphic design, having no real impact on the story. I'd argue that the whole point of using drawn animation (instead of actors/CGI) is to really push the limits of imagination and design; to do that which is too difficult/impractical in other mediums. Although the animation in Renaissance is certainly stunning and incredibly well-accomplished, I never felt like I was seeing something that hasn't been done before.

Immortel, another French CGI film, also suffers from an imbalance of beauty over story & pace. To be fair, some marvellous and engaging French movies also have a languid pace, and lingering shots of the look in someone's eyes or the rain on Paris cobbles can evoke great emotion - but animators need to understand that while animation brings unique strengths, it also has weaknesses when compared to real-life technique. Perhaps it would break from the 'noir' rules that the film wants to stick to, but I think the film-makers also missed a glaring opportunity to explore their future society a bit more - the social strata, the fascistic grip of the corporations etc.

I have no problem recommending Renaissance to anybody who enjoys stylistic design and/or animation ('Manga' fans in particular), but I wouldn't make my other film-loving friends sit through it. Take away the sumptuous visuals and it's a barely average film.

This is a film i decided to go and see because I'm a huge fan of adult animation. I quite often find that when a film doesn't evolve around a famous actor or actress but rather a story or style, it allows the film to be viewed as a piece of art rather than a showcase of the actors ability to differ his styles.

This film is certainly more about style than story. While i found the story interesting (a thriller that borrows story and atmosphere from films such as Blade Runner and many anime films), it was a bit hard to follow at times, and didn't feel like it all came together as well as it could have. It definitely had a mixed sense of French Animation and Japanese Anime coming together. Whether thats a good thing or not is up to the viewer. Visually this film is a treat for the eyes, and in that sense a work of art.

If you like adult animation, or would like to see a film that is different from most films out at the moment. I would recommend it. All i can say is that i enjoyed the experience of the film but did come away slightly disappointed because it could have been better

I highly recommend this film. Set in the Bladerunner-esquire future of 2054 Paris, it is in most respect a classic film noir script: lady in peril, sister trying to find her, honest cop fighting everyone. Luckily, it avoids being stereotypical, and combines a pretty good storyline with interesting, innovative visuals. The film might remind you of Sin City in look, but it has an even sharper, even more graphic novel look that I found really compelling. Each frame, each sequence seems like it could have been pulled from the desk of a skilled graphic designer. In terms of story and artwork, you can find nods going back to the nineteen forties (or even earlier with the classic views of the Eiffel Tower and Sacre Couer) and movies like Casablanca, as well as looking toward a grim future where our destines are ruled by corporations. Make any excuse you need to see this film.

It's 2042 Paris. Avalon is a mega corporation with products enhancing health, beauty, and longevity. One of its scientist, Ilona Tasuiev, gets kidnapped. Barthélémy Karas is a cop willing to ignore orders to get the job done. He is assigned the missing scientist case.

The story is future noir. The animation style is black and white rotoscope-like using motion capture. In a sense, the animation style dictates a lot about this movie. With so much black on the screen and the constant use of shadows, it can get a bit confused with some of the background characters. The story is a bit muddled. Honestly, it would be preferable to have Karas investigate alone. That way would not require keeping track of the other characters. The darkness gives the movie its dark noir tone but it also leaves the audience in the dark sometimes. All in all, I like the tone and the look but it doesn't excite.

Set in 2054 Paris, Renaissance has Daniel Craig voicing our protagonist, a (surprisingly) renegade cop investigating the kidnapping of a woman, after she disappeared from a club. His plight is further complicated when he uncovers seedy information about Avalon, the city's biggest company, who may have something to do with her disappearance. This relatively uninspiring tale of one man's search to uncover the truth behind a global conglomerate's surge towards everlasting youth and beauty is told through an interesting choice of cinematography and style: a mixture of rotoscope and fluid animation, all done in black and white palette. Whilst this initially looks relatively impressive, the novelty of it wears off fast, and inevitably looks unimpressive. It is certainly not a patch on similarly styled films of the past such as A Scanner Darkly (2006) or Sin City (2005). Fans of video games will get the feeling they are watching one really long cut-scene. The plot, possessing whatever little resonance it has, is done no favours by the completely clunky dialogue, delivered as monotonously as you'd like from the voice talent. It's a shame because there were things I really wanted to like about Renaissance. The only times it feels like really clicking in to second gear are the all too brief action scenes. There's a half-decent shootout within a green house, and a rather cartoonish car chase. But the characters are all far too hackneyed and one-dimensional: the blabbering scientist, the rogue cop, the femme fatale, the cackling bad guy, sprightly vodka drinking Russians, believe me – they all make an appearance. This certainly isn't a patch on Anime Manga, nor does it posses any of the depth that made Ghost In The Shell a three-dimensional experience. An intriguing, if inevitably unsatisfying experience.

I just went to a screening of the film during Expresion en Corto, a short film festival in Guanajuato, Mexico. One of the producers was there and gave a brief introduction. The Film rolled and from the first shot I was amazed: one long continuous shot of a futuristic Paris in glorious black and white.

I shouldn't go on with the details 'cause I think it is a film worth seeing. The sci-fi story might be found average for many... to me was really good. The action is great, the camera is free to fly everywhere and I mean everywhere. Things you would not be able to do or see is accomplished beautifully. The cast performance is good, in my opinion no one hits the wrong note.

Now, the thing that I found awesome is the animation. 3D grafics look 2D. A BW comic book brought to life. The details on the backgrounds gives more texture as if it had been done by hand (I'm sure it was but when the angles change you see the depth).

The producer at the screening talked about the hard work behind the film: 7 years! The director, she said, is brilliant, but perhaps he was quite unexperienced since he only had one short film in his CV. So, many people had true faith in them. They started their own studio from scratch and ever since they faced the challenge they brought upon them.

Don't miss it. I think you won't regret it... maybe Richard Linklater for the final look of this film is superior to his I think.

A very unique Sci-Fi animated film, and frankly I love uniqueness no matter which way it tends to be, better or worse. This French film is quite interesting to watch, the technique part is innovatory, like "Waking Life" I recently watched.

It took me quite a long time to get used to the Black-White style, but eventually I love it, the sketchlike images are really fancy! The contracted future world is a symbol of human race's final destination which I adore it very much.

The whole plot is fine for a Sci-Fi, not so intriguing but it's OK, like some Hollywood's products, a giant conspiracy about human's eternity, a little bit cliché and the twisted ending is not so convincing, some development is just too plain and insipid, and the whole movie is too long.

So I think I'm just in love with the style this film shows, others are not so good.

About the eternity of life, I think most people have come to a unanimousness that we don't want eternity because it demolishes the meaning of life, we treasure our lives because they are limited and meaningful, if everyone can live forever, thus the world world will become a disaster and chaos. Leaving someone you love is hard and heartbreaking, but that's also a way to show our lives are genuine and all the emotion fulfills one's life and make the world colorful and lively.

If you've ever seen the trailer for the film "The Recruit" with Colin Farrell and Al Pacino, you'll never have to see that film. Sadly, Renaissance has had similarly revelatory trailer makers.

The story of Renaissance is about a detective investigating the kidnapping of a young woman and medical researcher. The setting is a futuristic Paris, and science fiction elements feature throughout. The special thing about Renaissance, though, is its visual style, and not its story. Renaissance is 3D computer animation, like Final Fantasy, but highly stylised into black and white with ultra sharp contrasts. The result looks stunning (although the problems of 3D animation of human beings are still noticeable from time to tome: slightly robotic movements, slightly wooden facial acting, etc) As a highly stylised, beautiful film noir, Renaissance succeeds at stunning the audience, especially visually. The story and writing, though, are not quite at the same level of quality as the visuals. It's not a bad story (and presumably, if you haven't seen the trailer, it's a lot more exciting than it was for me). But it is a story that isn't highly original, and verges on the corny. A few lines of dialogue were painfully corny, making the writing sound like a beginner's first efforts.

I will definitely recommend Renaissance to friends. It's unlike anything I've seen before, visually, and I believe its originality alone makes it a worthwhile experience. It is also a watchable story, even if it isn't perfect.

Renaissance is a dark sombre animated movie about a police hunt in futuristic Paris for a young beautiful research assistant. This being sci-fi and French, not all is what it seems, and an intelligent set of stories and characters are blended together to create a rich tapestry of a movie.

The styling of the the movie, in my opinion, takes together Sin City with Ghost in the Shell, whilst I found there to be some influence also from the original Metal Gear Solid. Filmed all in black and white, the artwork is perfect comic book and works incredibly well. The voice overs are excellent too, and there is little wrong with the movie. However, intelligent as it is, I found that I wanted more from the film in depth in its story, not that it is wholly lacking, but that is a personal whine.

Regardless, if you enjoy something different to the norm this will easily meet your needs. Hope to see more like it in the future.

A star lineup lends their voices to the eye popping, noirish cop thriller, "Renaissance." A futuristic film that spends too much time on the visual piece rather than the story piece.

The year is 2054, Paris, where a talented young scientist named Ilona Tasuiev (Romola Garai) is kidnapped causing much commotion and panic for the regeneration company she works for, Avalon. Captain Karas (Daniel Craig) is leads the case to find Ilona. As Karas creeps farther into this labyrinth known as Paris, he finds information that he himself doesn't even want to know involving disastrous events linking to Avalon and its CEO, Paul Dellenbach (Jonathan Pryce) in the year 2006. With help from Ilona's sister, Bislane (Catherine McCormack) and Dr. Jonas Muller (Ian Holm) Karas slowly finds his way out of confusion only to find himself in a tangled web of violence and mayhem.

It's an interesting story, yes, but the story is not really the reason anyone would see this movie. Its for the visual piece. Visually, "Renaissance" is spectacular, filmed in a "Sin Cityish" way with a black-and-white animated feature with extreme contrasts giving it and eerier, noirish touch which makes the film that much better to watch. However, the animation can't account for everything, and isn't even perfect itself (many movements of the mouth and body seem robotic or delayed to an extent). As a movie, "Renaisance" is nothing new. Adding cheap thrills including shootouts and car chases to keep the audience locked for it's 1hr. and 45 mins. duration. Beyond that, "Renaissance" tries to hard to become a true noir film adding twists and turns at every corner throwing the film in a new direction, and by the end it's completely lost itself and the audience in a web of confusion it created.

Visually, "Renaissance" scores a 10, on everything else that counts, much lower. Averaged out, it comes out to just an O.K. film barely worth a recommendation. Personally, I would like to see more films made in this animated/contrast form, only I hope that the next time they use it, they have a better story to go along with it.

This was one of the most visually stunning animated features I've ever seen. Unfortunately, the plot was nonexistent and the dialogue was cribbed from every noir film ever made. Some might look upon this as an homage, however, but I thought it was just laziness on the part of the screenwriter(s). Even if one doesn't have a background in film noir, it's difficult to take the hackneyed/trite plot/dialogue seriously since the writer(s) used up one noir cliché after another.

Ultimately, 'Renaissance' is visual masturbation. The animation was choppy at times, but the overall effect was breathtaking: reflections, transparencies, etc.

I highly recommend this for any action or anime aficionados, as that audience is typically more forgiving and able to concentrate more on the important things in these types of films, such as fight scenes and FX wizardry.

This movie was very well done, in it's animation style. It was animated like a graphic novel, much like Frank Miller's Sin City. And it is a great detective movie like ChinaTown(1974), and for the futuristic style like Minority Report(2002). Set in 2054, in France, Troubled Police detective Karas(well voiced by Daniel Craig) is assigned to find a missing person, as he checks out all leads, he later teams up with the victims mouthy sister(Catherine McCormack). As Karas digs in deep, as he tries to find out the heart of the matter,could he be digging his own grave? This movie was good, until it came towards the ending, then I quickly began to lose interest. I just was not happy with the ending. I would rather own A Scanner Darkly on DVD, instead of this movie. This movie for me I would rather see one time.

If the answer to this question is yes, then you should enjoy this excellent movie. I've just seen it a couple of hours ago here in Paris (where the action of the movie takes place)and I can still feel the huge trauma I received in the back of my eyes...What a visual shock ! I've never seen such a beautiful black&white photo and such a drastic change in the way of doing animated movies. I strongly believe there will a before and after "Renaissance", similarly to what we saw with Pixar movies or the Akira and GhostInTheShell experiences. This is a real breakthrough in the small world of animated movies and I hope this french initiative (a small unknown french studio with a few young folks who had a dream named "Renaissance"...) will receive the success and recognition it deserves. Vive la France !

The good old style over substance theme goes into play here. Not that the story isn't intriguing at all, it does remind one of a movie called Blade Runner. And that is a compliment to the film Renaissance here of course!!

But the story tries to many things, it's overly complex and most of all, although I hate to say that, the animation does not help. It's a cool idea to make the movie only in black and white, like I said a cool style! But like in real life, where there also is not only "Black & white" a little Grey wouldn't have hurt! So although the unique style is one of it's high points, it's also one of it's downfalls too.

Having just seen Renaissance (English version), I'm sad to say that it was really very disappointing. I went in with high hopes but wanted to walk out after the first 5 minutes (some people did just that). Yes, visually it does have some nice touches - transparency and reflection effects are handled nicely, and the occasional flash of light across a face, for instance, looks fluid and stylish, but more often than not it has the look of a computer game video sequence, especially in the unconvincing body and lip movements. This, coupled with some truly diabolical dialogue and wooden voice acting, made me feel like I was watching a kids' film - I felt myself cringing from start to finish.

The script and storyline are very weak - riddled with clichés and non-developed one-dimensional characters. Daniel Craig is particularly terrible - he sounded like he was reading from an auto-cue. Perhaps it suffered a little in translation, but I really didn't rate the story either. You'll have seen this all before - there is very little originality of plot, it appears to simply be an amalgamation of other thrillers. I found the structure to be fairly unsatisfying as well - after about an hour, all of the plot's secrets are revealed and you're left waiting around for the loose ends to be tied up, checking your watch in anticipation of the rolling credits.

Don't be fooled by the Sin City comparisons - Renaissance is little more than an extended video game outtake.

Animation always seems to be fringe. In Japan, this might not be the case, but in Europe and much more so in the USA animation has a big fat "KIDS" tag on it. France is probably one of the more comic-liberal countries, home of classics as Tin-Tin, Asterix, Lucky Luke, Valereon and so on(if you've never read these, it's not too late. There's no upper-age limit on them and they don't carry the nerd-stigma of DC or Marvel) It seems natural a movie like this one pops up in France. It suits my prejudiced image of the French as art-loving, anti-USA-oriented and talented movie-makers. Luckily there's also "A scanner darkly" out there to suppress that view - seems art is pretty much international.

Anyway, as you might have gathered Renaissance is artsy and French. If you're a normal person you will get scared by this. There's no need for that however! Beneath it's cool, sleek cel-shaded appearance there's a good thriller and a good movie overall.

That was one of my fears for this movie. It's so easy turning the spectacular animation to a gimmick, much like Sony & C:o are doing with their Pixar rip-offs. I was expecting a confusing, sometimes boring and not very engaging movie, but luckily I was wrong.

I would have enjoyed it anyway for the neo-noir stuff, but it was good that it was worthwhile on that level as well. NOTE: I've seen the French dub which was OK as far as I could see. English might be more interesting what with Craig and everything.

A final word of praise to the animation. It was awesome. Futuristic, well-crafted, nice camera-work, smart solutions(Eyes for example looked very good, which is hard to do) and so visually stunning I felt like bursting out "This is so damn impressive!". Then again, I really like animation and I appreciate the effort the studio put down, so my verdict is a bit biased.

Good movie anyway, definitely lives beyond it's "gimmick".

If you're a sucker for black-and-white animation, film noir and science-fiction in one package, have a look at this visually arresting pic.

The images are a marvel to behold, which cannot be said about the either too lacklustre or too campy English voice-over work by some well-known actors.

The story's another matter: The characters are stereotypes which isn't too bad as the plot proves to be an eclectic mixture of detective movie and sci-fi pulp clichés, told in a fast-paced manner, along with some existential pretensions.

But the sheer beauty of it all is a good enough reason to embrace this pic.

6 out of 10 old children

If I weren't writing a review of Renaissance right now, I probably wouldn't remember it tomorrow. I realize that a lot of care went into the animation (or is it rotoscoping?) of this movie that blends film-noir and sci-fi into a slick story about a company in the future that can provide ageless beauty, and the one guy around played by Daniel Craig who thinks something is not right. Then there's a kidnapping, twisted doings in the underworld, befuddled if good-intentioned cops, and other things like genetic research, car chases, fights, and so on. I'm not sure what it is that makes the movie so forgettable as it should be up my alley (that is, re: Philip K. Dick fan, it's that kind of material if two or three times removed by generations). And I also like this rotoscope style animation... that is when it's done right. When watching it it's like there is rarely any space for another hue in the animation. Black and white could be fine, but what about depth and texture? Most of the scenes are either in black-black or white-white, very few grays I could really spot, and while it would be effective for a short film stretched over a feature length narrative it becomes irksome.

Coupling that with a story that gets overwhelmed by its style, and some mostly bland voice-work (yes I'm looking at you Daniel Craig), and it becomes kind of dull. And it shouldn't be. It's like watching the slick cut-scenes from a new X-Box game or something. If that's your bag, then go for it. But the story itself is too weak to support the visuals.