RENAISSANCE

The quickest moving snoozer I have seen in a long time. The scenes are constantly changing and often visually pleasing, but is there anything really happening?

I think the hardest part was getting into the characters. They were not developed in a way that made them appealing. There was a strong lack of emotion all around. The main character, Barthélémy Karas, is a cop searching for a young scientist that has been kidnapped. He has been told to find her alive and at all costs. His character is about as boring as he is animated. Tossing out lines like, First we find the girl and then we sleep. If you have ever seen any detective movie you know this is a line to be avoided at all costs. I don't recall more than one expression on his face throughout the film.

The animation was intriguingng and there were some very cool visual sequences. One of the best was a confrontation between Karas and the agents in the invisible suits; a shootout taking place within a framework of trees. Besides a few key scenes, there was very little action overall. This was a situation where action could have helped to hold my interest. Stylized much like a video game, the human movements were somewhat choppy, and the dialogue didn't always work well with what you were seeing on screen.

The scenes were often rushed and to the point. So much so that they often became uninteresting. Most scenes felt like they were there only to reveal a very minute bit of information on the weak story, and not to develop the characters more thoroughly. So although the scenes were constantly changing, the film seemed to be going nowhere.

Nicholas Dodd did a good job of creating a dark score, but the music is too subtle and unemotional to be too effective. You almost never notice that it is even there.

Renaissance focuses so much on trying to make something out of the lackluster plot and so little on engaging the audience through interesting characters. By the end of the film I had no emotional ties to any of the characters. I wanted to feel something. I yearned for at least a little bit of emotion. In fact, as the fim was wraping up I was waiting for them to reveal that Karas was actually a robot. Actually, I have seen robot characters with more emotion. The rather empty plot does not make up for the lack of character development.

The film came out of a six year process, and the time spent on visual presentation seems to shine through more than anything. Sometimes very visually appealing and fun to watch this film falls short on so many other aspects that it was not very enjoyable overall.


GRADE: C
http://www.apple.com/trailers/miramax/renaissance/trailer1/