Renaissance Review

Let's see... Corrupt shadowy bio-medical firms? Check. Top-secret projects that may give men godlike powers? Check. Lone wolf police officer who takes the law in his own hand? Check. Although the film does inject a few twists near the end, and does try to film in a little back-story for the world that it portrays, the storyline of Renaissance is essentially inert in its clichés from the very beginning.

Like so many animated films whose main claim to fame are their visuals, there is absolutely nothing under the surface. Even a film as inventive as Renaissance can't consistently wow the viewers for its entire runtime, and so needs something that will the viewer to make some sort of emotional connection to its characters. There is some attempt at that, with a short little bit that contains some Karas back-story, but it's largely peripheral to the proceedings as a whole.

So let's just be honest and say that the only reason to see Renaissance are for its gorgeous visuals and groundbreaking style. Of course, the most immediate thing to notice are its almost entirely black-and-white visuals. It's amazing how the animators can communicate such visual depth with such a limited palette, but they do. As for the animation, it's as fluid as can be, utilizing motion capture to replicate real human movement, be it in the way someone walks, holds their gun, or even moves their eyes (and as we all know, the eyes are all-important in creating authentic and believable animation).

It just would've been nice if the movie's four screenwriters had come up with a plot that was as original and groundbreaking as the visuals were. It's tempting to think what someone like Mamoru Oshii, who has proven himself capable of wedding cutting edge visuals to intriguing and involving storylines.

Renaissance is further proof that modern animation techniques utilizing extensive CGI, motion capture, and other technologies can replace much of traditional cel animation. Now, it just remains to be seen whether or not anything of actual merit or depth can be created with such tools. If not, these sorts of film will continue to remain little more than essentially glorified technical demos.

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And now on to the DVD release, specifically the Canadian edition distributed on these shores by Alliance Atlantis. The film itself is simply gorgeous, the transfer anamorphic and in the proper 'scope ratio and - as you would expect from a purely digital production - perfectly clean. Most importantly the contrast pops and the blacks are deep and true. The soundtrack includes both the English and French dialog versions and it is important to note that although this is a French production the lip synch was originally done to match the English voices so you are getting the film correctly in the English version rather than the French. There is only one special feature included but it is a good one, a twenty six minute making of featurette that gives all of the principal players involved ample time to talk about the process and also give us, the viewers, a good look at how the motion capture process works.