Yet another ranting anti-immortality film. A primitive story, based on stupid social biases derived from idiot religions. Write. Something. New. I wish, I wish, they would restrict the Arts qualifications people to just making the film look and sound good. And leave the writing to somebody with a brain and - particularly with SF - a knowledge of the sciences.Graphically, Renaissance is very impressive. Though, it becomes somewhat *Oppressive* after a while. The B&W is harsh.The voice characterisations are all excellent - it took me a little while to recognise Daniel Craig's voice.But, the whole thing is way, way too long. Suitable for a 40 minute special, but not a feature over one and a half hours long.- -- ---

I think Renaissance was quite exceptional and unique. It's definitely visually so, but I find the story to be quite original too. Considering that I haven't heard a thing about the movie until couple of days ago, and its IMDb score is not very convincing, my expectation weren't high. However, Renaissance has more than surpassed it.I liked the storyline. It was interesting detective story, slightly reminding me of 'Ghost In The Shell'. I didn't have a clue of how it's going to end until the last scenes. The reveal of the movie's idea also takes time, so the first half it's not clear what is happening.The animation is wonderful. The characters are lively, and detailing is good. Paris' 2054 metropolis architecture has a very interesting perspective. And the noir animation seems to fit perfectly with the plot.I felt that the dialogs in Renaissance were too curt. There were almost no real conversations that throws light upon characters' thoughts, philosophy, point of view etc... . Only dialogs that are necessary to advance the plot.Overall I liked it very much.

Punctuating the opening credits sequence is a swarthy man having a strange, all-too-real nightmare. Closing in on its dystopic 2054 Paris, the film begins to follow a woman into a grungy club, where she and a Slavic bartender convene outside on the deck. They toss exclamations at each other to the effect that she owes him more money although she believes she's paid it all. Another woman obstructs the budding violence, only to have a bitter fight with the woman herself. The initial woman storms out, and she is kidnapped. Christian Volckman's Renaissance appears to be another one in an assembly line of recent motion-capture-animated sci-fi noir pictures, but in spite of whether or not that is essentially true, it tells a neatly arranged, classically unraveling detective story that keeps us in the dark in its opening minutes, even whilst introducing Karas, the hard-boiled cop we recognize from the beginning as the man awakening from a terrible dream.The rudiments of classic film noir are all hit upon without any anachronistic changes, for all intents and purposes. It is in the harshness of its monochrome that Volckman's French thriller has followed no example. For the film's animators, unfettered by the challenges of physical lighting that would normally be faced, have been able to begin with a totally black frame, and to affix utter pitch-white according to the action on screen. As they scrupulously imitate the effects of real light sources throughout the frame, the distinction of black and white here is full-blown without even any of the slightest shades of gray to tone with the characters' less starkly definite moral codes, and the outcome is a harsh and judgmental vision of the direction in which commercial civilization is going, sporadically caused to undergo the most blaring and ruthless of illumination. It is the artistic study of film noir taken to their visual boundary of its philosophy, and nothing before has ever shared quite the same execution of this visual concept.All the characters in this decent cyberpunk film seem as if to have been walk off with purely from a Gothic comic book in black ink, but all together their physical responses, their motions and the nuances of their facial expressions look ashore within a clear humanity. Normally, films that try out new developments in animation allow their technical advances upstage all other facets of production. Sin City, for example, left substance and overall good screen adaptation from its source material to be desired.It may not be mind-blowing, it may have its narrative conventions and its voice-over cast may simply be adequate, but Renaissance, made for $19 million over six years, not only feels like actual noir instead of a rashly penned appropriation, but also is not secondary to all the visual innovation, which is played as if to be incidental. One leaves thinking not so much about how cool it is when Karas is evading bullets shot through a crowded glass Parisian street, but more about its ponderance of life and death, how life's tragedies, such as death, make life meaningful.

Time for Hollywood to sit up and take notice! If the actors are acting snooty, all you need to do is get the animators who worked on this little marvel. Renaissance is probably the first animation flick which makes you forget that you are not seeing human beings. Although the voice overs by the cast (Craig, McCormack, Pryce etc.) are some of the best i have ever heard but even then the emotions portrayed by the 'cartoons' are unnerving.This style of animation is not very new but the use of light and shadows makes the movie a living painting. Ironically, such technical wizardry makes you forget that this is actually a very very nice movie. The pacing and plot development are marvelous and the dialogs crisp.Plot: Disappearance of a mega corporation's top employee unravels a tale of deceit and corruption with a Cold hearted hero at the helm. Can't say much without giving it all away...except that while the movie keeps you at the edge of your seat, the climax leaves you speechless.A must watch..even for the 'grown-ups' who smirk at 'cartoons'