Renaissance

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, which is less a plotted movie than a meticulously made demo reel for "motion capture" animation, that's been reinvented for this impressive and wholly stultifying endeavor....

Take "Metropolis," "Blade Runner" and "Sin City," set them in Paris in 2054, run their widescreen visuals through an ultra-high-contrast B&W photocopying machine and you'll have a semblance of "Renaissance," 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. Fans of live action melded with a graphic-novel sensibility should consider this a must...

The chief drawback is the impossibly convoluted sci-fiplot, involving a roughneck cop stumbling upon the secret of immortality while searching for a missing girl. Add Daniel Craig and Jonathan Pryce dubbing shadowy synthespians that look nothing like them and the result is a recipe for bonce-scratching bewilderment...

The new motion-capture animated film "Renaissance" is 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...

While it borrows from any number of science-fiction classics, Renaissance has a look and feel all of its own. This is a film noir in the most literal sense, defined entirely by jet-black shadows. Along with Sin City, it is perhaps the purest evocation of comicbook visuals yet seen in a cinema. It's a pleasure to watch...