GAMES: GameSpot | GameFAQs MUSIC: Last.fm | MP3.com MOVIES: Metacritic | Movietome TV: TV.com
Home | About Metacritic | About Metascores | What's New | Wireless Versions | Discussion Forums | Advertising Inquiries | Contact Us | RSS
Metacritic.com: We Deal With Criticism
     Help
> Switch to Advanced Search  
Film Video/DVD Music Games TV

Film

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

 

Wide Releases

sort by name sort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 

Limited Releases

sort by name sort by score

67 $9.99
75 24 City
66 Adoration
74 Afghan Star
48 Alien Trespass
56 American Violet
82 Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57 Away We Go
81 Beaches of Agnes, The
62 Big Man Japan
28 Big Shot-Caller, The
78 Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55 Brothers Bloom, The
82 Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx Call of the Wild
63 Cheri
62 Cherry Blossoms
63 Dead Snow
65 Departures
18 Downloading Nancy
58 Easy Virtue
70 End of the Line, The
77 Every Little Step
64 Examined Life
80 Food, Inc.
38 Gigantic
56 Girl from Monaco, The
67 Girlfriend Experience, The
87 Gomorrah
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Great Buck Howard, The
79 Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx Home
82 Hunger
91 Hurt Locker, The
16 I Hate Valentine's Day
81 Il Divo
54 Is Anybody There?
71 Jerichow
58 Julia
74 Lemon Tree
36 Life is Hot in Cracktown
40 Limits of Control, The
42 Little Ashes
64 Lymelife
50 Management
57 Merry Gentleman, The
66 Moon
35 New York
62 Not Forgotten
xx Offshore
78 O'Horten
64 Outrage
40 Paris 36
54 Pontypool
71 Pressure Cooker
52 Quiet Chaos
83 Revanche
67 Rudo y Cursi
86 Seraphine
65 Sex Positive
70 Shall We Kiss?
77 Sin Nombre
59 Sleep Dealer
74 Song of Sparrows, The
54 Stoning of Soraya M., The
82 Sugar
84 Summer Hours
61 Sunshine Cleaning
28 Surveillance
42 Tennessee
63 Tetro
64 Throw Down Your Heart
80 Tokyo Sonata
63 Tokyo!
70 Tony Manero
74 Treeless Mountain
88 Tulpan
74 Two Lovers
83 Tyson
83 U2 3D
60 Under Our Skin
69 Unmistaken Child
69 Valentino: The Last Emperor
22 What Goes Up
45 Whatever Works
57 Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 



Printer-Friendly Version Email This Page Discuss In Our Forums

Renaissance
Miramax Films

Renaissance reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 57 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
6.5 out of 10
based on 17 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 9 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for some violent images, sexuality, nudity and language

Starring Daniel Craig, Catherine McCormack, Romola Garai, Jonathan Pryce, Ian Holm, and Rick Warden

Renaissance is a bold vision of a stark near future drenched in hidden secrets and technological frontiers. It takes film noir to its most stylized edge, utilizing live action motion capture, animated in 3D and rendered in high contrast black and white to create graphic novel come-to-life. (Miramax)


GENRE(S): Action  |  Animation  |  Drama  |  Foreign  |  Sci-fi  |  Suspense/Thriller  
WRITTEN BY: Alexandre de La Patellière
Mathieu Delaporte
Jean-Bernard Pouy (adaptation)
Patrick Raynal (adaptation)
 
DIRECTED BY: Christian Volckman  
RELEASE DATE: Theatrical: September 22, 2006 
RUNNING TIME: 105 minutes, B/W 
ORIGIN: France / UK / Luxembourg 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

88
ReelViews James Berardinelli
The film's look is impressive; it's the most successful rotoscoping effort to date (far surpassing Richard Linklater's duo of "Waking Life" and "A Scanner Darkly"), and causes every frame to drip atmosphere.
Read Full Review
80
The New Yorker Anthony Lane
One of the year’s more luscious releases, offering not just the sleekest car chase but the most romantic of rainstorms.
Read Full Review
75
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Gorgeous and menacing at the same time.
Read Full Review
75
Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
The result is something both fluid and stark, cinematic and comic book-y, and incredible.
Read Full Review
70
Variety Lisa Nesselson
A melancholy actioner that shines a new light on film noir. A sort of "The Third Man" for the 21st century, chiaroscuro curio's level of graphic invention is exceeded only by its pleasingly mournful approach.
Read Full Review
67
The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray
Some kind of wonderment.
Read Full Review
63
Boston Globe Ty Burr
Stark eye candy of the first order, the film is saddled with the oldest story this side of "Blade Runner." Still, comic-book fanboys and graphic designers with time to kill should feel no shame in checking this one out.
Read Full Review
60
Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust
A visually wondrous experience in high-contrast black and white, bogged down by a slow, underwrought story and uninvolving characters. It would be easy to dismiss it as another great-looking film with little else to offer, but that wouldn't be entirely true.
Read Full Review
60
Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Volckman and Miance are undoubtedly superb draftsmen; what they need is a writer of comparable skill.
Read Full Review
58
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Connoisseurs of digital animation, graphic novels, and the history of dystopian art will have plenty to discuss about Christian Volckman's visually striking, technically impressive black-and-white animated feature Renaissance…But no one will be talking about the movie's banal plot, the trite dialogue, or any of the indistinguishable characters who offer a bleak futuristic vision of cinema that's all style, no soul.
Read Full Review
50
The New York Times Stephen Holden
Over the course of 105 minutes, the brutal high contrast begins to strain the eyes. Effectively moody as it is, the style makes a convoluted story of corporate greed, high-tech espionage and science run amok even more difficult to follow.
Read Full Review
50
The Hollywood Reporter Bernard Besserglik
Pitched as "animation for adults," Renaissance will find an audience among those in the 20-35 age group who enjoy graphic novels, but will disappoint anyone hoping for emotional or intellectual sustenance.
Read Full Review
50
Village Voice Robert Wilonsky
For a little while, the film is dazzling. Then it's dizzying. Then it's just kind of . . . wearying. That's not because it's in black-and-white; so was "Sin City". There's just something terribly, tragically dull about Renaissance.
Read Full Review
50
San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub
Although intriguing to look at, Renaissance -- the latest animated film geared to adult audiences -- is undone by a plot that is ridiculously hard to follow and hackneyed.
Read Full Review
50
New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
With its halfhearted script, stiff performances and overlong running time, this is the kind of movie that's simultaneously dazzling to look at, and increasingly tough to sit through.
Read Full Review
50
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
A fumbling attempt to create the European equivalent of a Japanese manga thriller in the conspiratorial mold of "Akira" and "Ghost in the Shell" has a stunning look.
Read Full Review
40
LA Weekly Ella Taylor
The director is Christian Volckman, whose skills as an animator greatly exceed his grasp of an idea worth pursuing.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 6.5 (out of 10) based on 9 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Shaun C. gave it a6:
It's....I'ts interesting, and visually stunning...for a while and then the characters take over...which are quite...shallow, and the dialogue is not the most amazing you've ever heard....it's worth a watch, once

Mike gave it a0:
The visuals got really boring after 10 mins. I felt like there was so much to see, but the black and white animations were very limiting. The story was really boring as well. The movie really didnt have much going for it. Boring, bad story, not intresting characters, and to top it all off bad visuals. Avoid.

Andre R. gave it a9:
Great movie. Very original. If you enjoyed Blade Runner and SIn City you owe it to yourself to watch this.

Soren A. gave it a10:
This movie shows why the everyday american film is for gotten around the world, with it's georgeous visuals, enthralling story, well written dialogue, it shows what american sci-fi films are lacking. This move overcompensates for this years "American" films *cough* Ultraviolet *cough*. Every true sci-fi fan should watch this movie.

Jay W. gave it a2:
Animation exercise was interesting for the first, um, two minutes. Then it was sheer boredom all the way, from the hackneyed female-in-peril plot to the childish dialogue. An insult to the film-noir genre.

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page
Home | FILM | DVD/VIDEO | MUSIC | GAMES | TV | Forums | About Metacritic metacritic.com

Popular on CBS sites: iPhone 3G | Fantasy Football | Moneywatch | Antivirus Software | Recipes | E3 2009

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use