The rise of the so-called geek elite — the kids who
purchased and hoarded comic books and action figures in the 1980s, and then
slipped in the back door of the entertainment industry as grown-ups — is having
far-reaching influences, of which only the first wave we are now experiencing. Movies
like Sin City and 300
are new standards by which genre product will be judged, not merely some quirky
aberrations.
Renaissance fits
into this trend is somewhat hard to say. A French, animated sci-fi crime thriller
that didn’t really catch on at the theatrical box office earlier this year, the movie is set in
the labyrinthine underworld of 2054
and unfolds in starkly captivating black-and-white frames that perhaps turned
some folks off. A dystopian thriller loosely in the vein of Blade Runner and Minority Report, the movie paints a bold vision of a not-so-distant
future where all life is monitored, recorded and regulated, thanks to the City
of
health and beauty conglomerate known as Avalon. Detective Barthelemy Karas (voiced
by Daniel Craig in the movie’s English translation) has a reputation for
finding anyone at any cost, but while tracking down Ilona Tasuiev (voiced by Romola
Garai), a scientist abducted in the midst of some groundbreaking anti-aging research,
Karas ultimately finds himself buried beneath the film’s illicit world of
corporate malfeasance and soulless genetic research. Added pressure comes in
the form of Ilona’s bad girl sister, Bislane (voiced by Catherine McCormack),
and her shady boss, Paul Dellenbach (Tony Award-winner Jonathan Pryce), who heads
up Avalon. (Also providing voice work is Ian Holm.)
wondrous, slurry experience. One often finds their mind slinking off into
recesses of the frame, and wondering about the world just out of our field of
vision. The interesting thing is that the movie relies on motion capture for
the bulk of its body animations, which is a strange mixture with black-and-white.
It sort of tricks the brain every once in a while, and you find yourself
sometimes so caught up in the visuals, and trying to piece together backgrounds
in fill-in-the-blank fashion, as to miss a line or two of dialogue.
consistent and specific use of futuristic items that seem plausible in their
extension from today’s society, perhaps due to an exacting and mentally
rigorous pre-production process (Alexandre De La Patelliere, Matthieu
Delaporte, Jean-Bernard Pouy and Patrick Raynal share screenplay credit). If
there’s a knock, it’s that the story is kind of boilerplate, and even attempts
to subvert certain noirish genre clichés announce themselves with, well,
black-and-white signposting.
housed in a regular Amray case, presented in its original 2.35:1 widescreen
aspect ratio, enhanced for 16:9 televisions. The film’s video transfer is
excellent, with sharp edges, no enhancement problems or other blemishes. As one
might expect, its tones are quite necessarily deep; there’s no room for shades
of grey here. Audio comes in the form of a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound
track, and in either English or French it’s powerful, consistent and deep, with
action effects echoing from all channels during the movie’s shoot-outs and brawnier
sequences. Apart from a clutch of trailers, the film’s sole DVD bonus feature consists of a lengthy making-of featurette which explores the
innovative process by which Volckman and his collaborators brought the
digitally animated noir tale to life, over the course of five painstaking
years. Along with interviews with many of the behind-the-scenes players, the
featurette also includes footage of the movie’s wireframe mock-ups and its motion
capture work players — a great look at the unsung heroes of a new-fangled production
like this. There’s also a glimpse at the musical scoring process. B- (Movie) B (Disc)