Renaissance Renaissance

Paris 2054. Live forever or die trying

To find Ilona and unlock the secrets of her disappearance, Karas must plunge deep into the parallel worlds of corporate espionage, organized crime and genetic research - where the truth imprisons whoever finds it first and miracles can be bought but at a great price.

Daniel Craig Catherine McCormack Romola Garai Jonathan Pryce Ian Holm Kevork Malikyan Robert Dauney Crystal Shepherd-Cross Isabelle Van Waes

Onyx Films France2 Cinéma

thriller science fiction foreign animation adventure action

105 mins   More details at IMDb / TMDb

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  • JJ Huber

    Review by JJ Huber ★★

    Beautiful black-and-white rotoscoped noir look but unfortunately that distracts the viewer from a lackluster plot.

  • Austin Vashaw

    Review by Austin Vashaw ★★

    Uniquely rotoscoped in deep blacks and whites (with a few flourishes of lighting/transparency and color), but the visual style actually detracts quite a bit. This is a slow, boring movie and the stark visuals make it feel even more empty.

  • Michael Scott

    Review by Michael Scott ★★

    A review I wrote back in 2006:

    Paris, 2054. Ilona Tassueiv (Garai), a brilliant young genetics researcher is violently kidnapped from her workplace and held without ransom demand. Hard-nosed cop, Karas (Craig) is brought onto the case by Tassueiv's employer, the omnipresent super-corporation Avalon. With the help of Tassueiv's sister, the femme fatale-ish Bislane (McCormack), Karas trawls the labyrinthine streets of the Parisian underworld in a hunt that becomes increasingly more desperate as the stakes are raised, not just for him but for all humanity.

    Renaissance is a visually striking film. The marriage of black and white animation and motion capture (the process used most prominently by video game creators, animated features like The Polar Express (2004) and digital characters…

  • bmart17

    Review by bmart17 ★★★½

    This may get some slack, but I absolutely love the animation style, with bold variations of deep black and bright white throughout. It's an interesting and unique film. Give it a try.

  • Dos_Corazones

    Review by Dos_Corazones ★★★½

    An exceptional visual style, based on motion capturing. Most of the movie is a pure animation of just black and white contrast. This is quite unique and very interesting to see.

    Alas the story could have been much better. Pace and presentation doesn't hold up the whole time with the outstanding artistic ideas of the Paris of 2054. But most disturbingly the subject matter has far more depth and offers a lot more possibilities than it is shown in 'Renaissance'.

  • Paul 7String

    Review by Paul 7String ★★★★

    I little hard to watch and confusing at the beginning because of the high contrast black and white motion capture animation. But after a while I got used to it and the story became very interesting. At times I thought to myself it would be better as a live action movie but after thinking about it I'm not so sure. I think its because the story and direction is good that I'm sure someone could really turn this into a piece of garbage. So I'm happy with it staying as an animation movie.

    Look forward to seeing it again sometime.

  • VisitorQ

    Review by VisitorQ ★★½

    So beautiful to watch but the "story" is so lame.

  • T S

    Review by T S ★★★★

    Renaissance is strikingly presented, and blew me away in a few places. Despite its totally black and white palette -- no grayscale at all -- it still rivals Blade Runner visually at times, which sounds nuts until you see it unfolding in front of you. Story-wise it's a bit kooky and doesn't really hold much water, but the plot was compelling enough to keep me interested. It's worth a rewatch any day, and was quite entertaining throughout. I'm not sure why it never reached a broader audience -- from what I can tell it looks like it only played on literally a handful of screens in 2006 and vanished. The 37-minute long making-of short was interesting to watch, and was better than the average puff piece. Don't miss this one -- it's more than worth a look.

  • Kevin Horsten

    Review by Kevin Horsten ★★★½

    It's definitely an unique movie, very noir! Almost purely black and white (little to no grey), because of that I had a little trouble in the beginning keeping track of who's who. Some great action scenes.