FILMBRATS - REVIEWS

In 2054, Paris has become the futuristic city we’ve all come to know and love in all those paranoid science-fiction films. The cops use extremely high-tech equipment to catch the criminals that seem to be using even higher-tech gadgets. It’s up to Barthémémy Karas to track down a kidnapped research scientist Ilona, because the fate of the city may actually be hinging on her recent discoveries. As Karas investigates, he further unlocks deep dark guarded secrets within the institution and the prominent Avalon Company that may just be too much for him to handle.

Let me just say that this is what “Sin City” should have looked like. The motion capture (although sometimes it looks like rotoscope) is presented in the ultimate contrast. Nothing but pure blacks and pure whites combine to give life to the overacting and the bad story. Without the gray mid-tones, it looks a lot grittier and makes for a much more stylized look that I can only assume Rodriguez was trying to accomplish with “Sin City.” The downside to this is that the lack of color or scale sometimes makes this incredibly dark backdrop blend in with the characters. Even though there’s a surprising amount of texture, it’s still occasionally hard to get a grasp of the third dimension within the environment.

Alright, so that’s the good. Here’s the bad. First let’s go back to the visuals. The movie credits Marc Miance with the “Original Visual Concept.” Now, I don’t know about you, but it’s pretty easy to see a lot of elements stolen from a lot of different sources here. Even if the comic version of “Sin City” wasn’t a direct influence, I can only imagine that other graphic novels using the same stark black and white schemes were. The city looks like a bleaker version of “Blade Runner” (only due to the lack of neon) mixed with Gotham City. Anyone who has watched science fiction films before can recognize the crime fighting standards of the future. I’d bet the Motorola neck implants have been done before, too. And the camera work looks like every single video game cut scene ever created ever. That would be fine if the movie were a video game.

In fact, it’d probably be much more entertaining and forgivable if it were a video game. But since it’s not, I can’t really excuse the horribly standard storyline and the downright laughably bad dialogue. If there’s any reason to make this animated at all, it’s to give the bad voice acting a home. The frames are usually way too busy and a couple of the transitions make it feel as if they’ve already prepared for television commercial breaks.

I really don’t have much positive feedback to give this film, which is a shame, because the trailer looked great. While there are a couple of good shots, the majority of the film fails to live up to the high standards of all those other movies it ripped off. Just because it’s a detective story, doesn’t mean it’s a film noir. Just because the story revolves around science and is set in the future doesn’t make it science fiction. Just because it’s animated (lazily through motion capture no less) doesn’t mean I’m going to like it.

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