Review of Renaissance (2006) by Matthew S — 05 Feb 2011

Renaissance comes to us courtesy of the French. It's an animated noir mixed with science fiction that borrows many elements from genre classic Blade Runner. Although the film clearly was intended to be the beginning of a new era of animation, thanks to a few cripling flaws, it ends up as being a historic oddity as opposed to a revolution in animated films.

Renaissance opens on Paris in 2054, where the largest corporation is Avalon, obviously sinister when it's ads read "We're with you for life". In this generic future world, everyone apparently has crappy british accents, drives the same make of cars, as well as have faces with built in dramatic shadows. Admittedly the black and white style is very cool to look at, and the film looks like something ripped straight out of the pages of Sin City. The animation is also very fluid as a result of the rotoscoping technique used to render the film. The plot is a mess, consisting of various plot hooks from other noirs and cyberpunk films thown together with no form of coherence or style. Only at the beginning and the end does the plot hold up.

The only saving grace of Renaissance is it's visuals. The action doesn't have enough spice or pack enough energy to save the film's second act. I would only reccomend this film to an animation junkie on account of the visuals alone, which really have nothing to be compared to. It's only in this respect that Renaissance lives up to it's title, in every other respect it's more of the same.

OVERALL: 6.0/10.