It’s rare these days to come across a film that attempts to do or engage in something unique. Something you haven’t seen done before. The uniqueness of Renaissance jumps out of you even before you put the dvd in the players. The film is basically entirely animated in black and white… and when I say “black and white”, I mean literally just the 2 colors of black and white. There is hardly a trace of grey in it at all. So how is the movie?
THE GOOD
Obviously the first thing I have to mention here is the visual style of the film. The motion captured black and white animation of the film is something that I personally have never seen before, and was just breathtaking to look at. I wondered if the novelty of the visual style would eventually wear off after a few minutes into the film… but it never did. Over and over again the art of the film makes you gasp as it just keeps topping itself as you go through the movie.
The big worry with a film like this is that style is emphasized to the detriment of the story. I enjoyed the story of Rennaissance quite a bit. As we were watching it I remarked that although it is a futuristic story, it has the feel of an old 50s gumshoe private eye film which I enjoyed a great deal. Daniel Craig (James Bond) is the voice of the lead character… a rough, no nonsense cop who is given the task of finding a young, beautiful and brilliant kidnapped scientist. His only leads are her sister, and what projects she may have been working on. The intrigue expands from there, and I can’t really mention anything else without giving away spoilers. The story keeps a great pace, kept me guessing and most importantly kept me entertained.
Soundtracks and musical scores are always important in any movie… but I’ve been starting to discover that they’re even more important in animated films. I loved the music in Renaissance. Always conveying emotion and dramatic tension, while also just being damn cool to listen to. It was a perfect and beautiful companion to the visual art of the movie.
THE BAD
Renaissance suffers from what man modern animated movies suffer from… they, for some reason, feel the need to fill the roles of voice actors with regular (and popular) screen actors… and you really can tell the difference. The voice acting (aside from a couple of the side characters) often came across pretty wooden and emotionless. I understand the appeal from a marketing stand point of getting the new James Bond as the lead voice… but really… the film would have been much better served had they gotten a pure voice actor instead.
Cliches abound in Renaissance. Despite the strength of the story, they filled some of the elements with tired and over done devices. The Evil giant corporation. The cop who does things his own way and to hell with authority. yadda yadda yadda. The strength of the story itself overcomes much of these… but it did hurt the movie.
OVERALL
Renaissance is a visually beautiful, terrific sounding well crafted story that suffers from some wooden performances and over reliance on cliches, yet manages to entertain you throughout and impress you with the uniqueness of its style. Overall, I give Renaissance a 7.5 out of 10, and I’m happy to recommend you grab the dvd this week to check it out.
“Thanks for the review, I’ll be looking out for the original French audio with English subtitle, might be worth it than the English dubbed.”
This movie is originally in English and dubbed in French. You can see from the way the mouth is synched. I thought the movie dragged a bit at certain parts. Overall, it was an okay movie. Looks great on HD-DVD though.
I am excited about the tons of Comic Con talk on the next podcast but if you have time it would also be cool to hear what the round table thinks about this movie if all of you happen to watch it.
It was good and i totally agree with everything you said. I feel though they could have worked on the characters more. Make them into real people really
Beautiful film but staggeringly empty and derivative. I really wanted to like it, from the stark black and white look to the time involved in bringing the project through fruition (if you look at the credits, there is a section of the number of crew/cast children born during the production cycle! It’s a big list!).
But I ended up really being disappointed that the script is absolute drek. So much time wasted on such a bad script.
Don’t bother with this one. The visuals only hold you for less than half of the films runtime. Not Enough.
i rented this, it is sitting on top of the dvd player waiting to be played, but i just can;t seem to be able to find the time.
Thing is John, Daniel Craig did this movie even before Bond, so that marketing standpoint of having the new James Bond as the lead doesn’t apply here.
I have been waiting for this movie to come over here on dvd for a while … i just bought it a week ago and this review just drives me even more to want to watch. I’ll eventually get to this weekend. Thanks for the great review
Thanks for the review, I’ll be looking out for the original French audio with English subtitle, might be worth it than the English dubbed.
I saw this in Boston last year with the director in house. Had a nice little Q&A. Turns out they got Daniel Craig way before he’d landed Bond.
I enjoyed the movie overall, but the plot did kind of get in the way a bit, effectively brining the action to a complete halt every now and then. It was a bit like – movie movie movie movie, loooong plot explanation, movie movie movie movie, loooong plot explanataion and ect.
I’d go lower than 7.5, perhaps a 5.5. All that’s really fresh about the flick is it’s visuals. Entertaining nonetheless, though.
I’ve been wanting to see this movie for a long time and I wish it had been released where I live but unfortunately it wasn’t. I will get the DVD when i get the chance I really can’t wait to see this movie.
From my understanding (I may be wrong) Craig was chosen before he even became the new Bond also this movie was set to be released several months before the release of Casino Royal. So I don’t think that he was casted in the film because of his newly acquired Bond status.
I really want to see this movie!!!
I absolutely loved Renaissance. I give it 9/10. It was visually stunning, intellectually engaging, and very genuine.
Hmmm. I think I will certainly check it out, it looks promising.