GRADE: B

The sensibilities of “Blade Runner” collide with the stark cinematic style of “Sin City” in the highly stylized “Renaissance,” French director Christian Volkman’s English-language tech-noir; a slick police procedural featuring the voice talents of several fine British performers, including current 007 Daniel Craig.

A combination of rotoscoping—a process that converts filmed images into a type of animation—motion capture and traditional matte techniques, “Renaissance” is by no means a casual affair, earning every bit of its R-rating with a decidedly adult story about the dangers of seeking eternal youth and beauty.

The potential culprits might be the Avalon Corporation, whose beauty products seems to enable people to stave off aging and maintain their youthful vigor; products on which people have become dependant, making Avalon a rich and powerful player on the world stage.

The time is 2054; the city, Paris. One of Avalon’s top researchers has been kidnapped, and the corporation (as well as the authorities) wants her back. That puts police detective Barthélémy Karas (voiced by Craig) on the case. He’s a no-nonsense cop with a reputation as a loner, but he’s the best at what he does and won’t let anything—or anyone—stand in his way.

Before long, the trail leads to the missing scientist’s sister and her lowlife boyfriend, who might have played a part in the abduction. Also on the radar screen is Avalon CEO Paul Dellenbach, whose emotional pleas for the girl’s return might belie something far more sinister.

The twist comes in the form of an incident—more a series of events, really—that occurred back in 2006; events that had a huge impact on society and have cast a dark shadow over the future of the human race. This development gives “Renaissance” a deeper narrative, but it remains a traditional cop movie, albeit a good one with a significantly different appearance.

Volkman’s directing is often inspired and many of the film’s backdrops, artwork and sweeping camera moves are impressive in creating a world that is both familiar and strangely foreign. And the images—provided by a bevy of artists and art directors—are richer and far more detailed than anything in “Sin City,” which suffered from a two-dimensional visual palette that relied strictly on solid black and white images, making interiors and exteriors almost indistinguishable.

Not so in “Renaissance,” where despite a similarly confined color scheme the visuals are consistently painted and presented in ways that make them come alive. There’s nothing static about the film’s overall look, and the rotoscoping and stop-motion are never blurry or exaggerated, as they were (for good reason) in “A Scanner Darkly” and certain other films where the technique was employed.

Fast paced, hard edged and generally well performed, although there are moments when the dialogue lacks the spark that’s achieved when actors are physically together on set, “Renaissance” is a good movie in a great package; one even viewers who have shied away from this kind of material in the past will appreciate for its straightforward storytelling and realistic action.

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