Phim hoạt hình luôn luôn bị coi là thứ yếu. Ở Nhật Bản thì có lẽ không phải vậy, nhưng ở Châu Âu và đặc biệt là ở Mỹ, phim hoạt hình thường gắn liền với nhãn hiệu "Dành cho trẻ em". Pháp có lẽ là một trong những quốc gia cởi mở nhất về truyện tranh, quê hương của những tác phẩm kinh điển như Tin-Tin, Asterix, Lucky Luke, Valereon và nhiều tác phẩm khác (nếu bạn chưa từng đọc những truyện này, thì đây là cơ hội tốt để bắt đầu. Những truyện này không có giới hạn độ tuổi và không mang tính dở hơi như truyện tranh DC hay Marvel). Rất hợp lý khi một bộ phim như này xuất hiện ở Pháp. Nó phù hợp với quan điểm thiên vị của tôi về người Pháp là những người yêu nghệ thuật, ghét Mỹ và có tài làm phim. May mắn thay, vẫn có "A scanner darkly" để bác bỏ quan điểm đó - nghệ thuật thì dường như là quốc tế.
Animation always seems to be fringe. In Japan, this might not be the case, but in Europe and much more so in the USA animation has a big fat "KIDS" tag on it. France is probably one of the more comic-liberal countries, home of classics as Tin-Tin, Asterix, Lucky Luke, Valereon and so on(if you've never read these, it's not too late. There's no upper-age limit on them and they don't carry the nerd-stigma of DC or Marvel) It seems natural a movie like this one pops up in France. It suits my prejudiced image of the French as art-loving, anti-USA-oriented and talented movie-makers. Luckily there's also "A scanner darkly" out there to suppress that view - seems art is pretty much international.<br /><br />Anyway, as you might have gathered Renaissance is artsy and French. If you're a normal person you will get scared by this. There's no need for that however! Beneath it's cool, sleek cel-shaded appearance there's a good thriller and a good movie overall.<br /><br />That was one of my fears for this movie. It's so easy turning the spectacular animation to a gimmick, much like Sony & C:o are doing with their Pixar rip-offs. I was expecting a confusing, sometimes boring and not very engaging movie, but luckily I was wrong.<br /><br />I would have enjoyed it anyway for the neo-noir stuff, but it was good that it was worthwhile on that level as well. NOTE: I've seen the French dub which was OK as far as I could see. English might be more interesting what with Craig and everything.<br /><br />A final word of praise to the animation. It was awesome. Futuristic, well-crafted, nice camera-work, smart solutions(Eyes for example looked very good, which is hard to do) and so visually stunning I felt like bursting out "This is so damn impressive!". Then again, I really like animation and I appreciate the effort the studio put down, so my verdict is a bit biased.<br /><br />Good movie anyway, definitely lives beyond it's "gimmick".