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.
