The year: 2054; the place: Paris, France, a futuristic city built vertically alongside the historic landmarks of the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame Cathedral. Ilona (voiced by Romola Garai), chief scientist of the company Avalon has gone missing. Avalon, which sells "eternal youth," has hired Barthelemy Karas (Daniel Craig, Munich, Casino Royale ) to find her.
A Paris police detective with a record for getting the job done, Karas begins his investigation with her mentor, former Avalon employee and geneticist genius Jonas Muller (Ian Holm, From Hell, The Sweet Hereafter ), who is now at a clinic doing work for the underprivileged in Paris.
His discussion with Muller turns somewhat eerie as Muller tells him no one really leaves Avalon, the largest company in Paris. This leads Karas down the line to question Avalon vice president Paul Dellenbach (Jonathan Pryce, Pirates of the Caribbean, Ronin ), Ilona's sister, Bislane Tasuiev (Catherine McCormack, Braveheart, Spygame ), and a number of other suspects in the labyrinth that Paris has become.
While the script and background story seem quite similar to the likes of other films such as Minority Report and Blade Runner, the difference is that the film is a black and white animated film which takes the definition of film noir to a literal extreme.
The animation is certainly top notch: The Renaissance world is a blanket which has been pulled over the eyes of the audience. You are completely enveloped in the film, and the long-winter-like feel of black and white animation adds a sense of darkness that can't be fully attained in a traditional movie done in the film noir genre.
Director Christian Volckman uses a recent technique, live action motion capture, MOCAP for short, which records an actor's motion in 3 dimensions. Volckman uses a full-on soundstage mapped point-by-point in tandem with actors who have individual markers on their entire body. These markers send signals out to a computer that records their motion.
What does all of this mean? Well in essence, a much more realistic animated film with a genuine sense of motion from the characters' expressions to the action scenes. Each of the characters has been filmed using the MOCAP process and from there, each frame is taken and hand-painted using painter animation software. The end result—true art on screen—with motion and animation as realistic as it gets and images that no traditional camera or animation process could duplicate.
While the visual effects are truly captivating, the story and script are not enough to carry the entire film. Despite the audio performances by Daniel Craig, Catherine McCormack and Ian Holm, the story is watered down and in most cases the story is secondary to the visual and artistic animation.
For graphic novel and comic book fans, the movie will be a thrill throughout, but the average movie-goer might get a bit bored with the visual effects and animations three-fourths of the way in, but there certainly is enough action in the film to keep the audience going after a brief lull here and there. Overall, Renaissance is certainly worth seeing; however, if you are going for Oscar caliber, you won't find it here!
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