Renaissance is a feast for your eyes. Wow, that really sounds cliché. Hmmm … How about this: The movie was awesome to watch; too bad the story couldn't match the visuals.
The movie won best picture at the Annecy International Film Festival. I checked out the Web site because I didn't know anything about it and it was all in French. I don't read French. But, I did manage to make out the word “animation.”
So, I'm gonna go with … This movie won best picture at an animation festival in France. Ergo, don't worry about the story when you go see this, just enjoy watching it because this was shot with real actors and then each frame was hand painted in its initial form.
They also use Motion Capture (MoCap). Often used for video games and most recently, films, it allows cameras to record the wholeness and smoothness of the actors' motions, applied to the virtual characters in three dimensions. This technique allows for a very elaborate level of animation quality and offers a strikingly truthful representation of the actors' motions.
This is the first time a movie like this has ever been made. Noteworthy names associated with this flick are: Christian Volckman (director), Frederic Vanderberghe (MoCap Technical Supervisor) and Aton Soumache (producer). On the inside of the film there's a few surprises in the voice cast: Daniel Craig ( Casino Royale ), Catherine McCormick ( Spy Game , A Sound of Thunder ) and Jonathan Pryce ( Pirates of the Caribbean , Tomorrow Never Dies ).
Overall, the movie is entertaining and amazing to watch, but the story really drags. It's very basic and doesn't really leave much room for suspense or anything really worth paying attention to. Keep an ear out for the director and producer's names in the future, though. They made a great looking film and now they just need to learn from their mistake and give the next one a story.
Grade: C
Comment
