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63Stark 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.
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58Connoisseurs 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.
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40The director is Christian Volckman, whose skills as an animator greatly exceed his grasp of an idea worth pursuing.
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60A 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.
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50With 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.
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75The result is something both fluid and stark, cinematic and comic book-y, and incredible.
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88The 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.
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50Although 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.
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50A 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.
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67Some kind of wonderment.
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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.
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50Over 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.
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80One of the year’s more luscious releases, offering not just the sleekest car chase but the most romantic of rainstorms.
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75Gorgeous and menacing at the same time.
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70A 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.
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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.
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60Volckman and Miance are undoubtedly superb draftsmen; what they need is a writer of comparable skill.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 3 out of 5
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Mixed: 0 out of 5
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Negative: 2 out of 5
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ShaunC.6
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Mike0
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AndreR.9Great movie. Very original. If you enjoyed Blade Runner and SIn City you owe it to yourself to watch this.