bruceb

Wow. This is one of the just plain most beautiful movies I've seen in ages. The trailer shows you what's up: it's an sf noir story rotoscoped from live action into animation and processed into nearly pure black and white. It could easily have gotten harsh in 1h 45m, but it stays fresh, and repeatedly dazzling.

The story is pretty straightforward. A brilliant young scientist is abducted, her patron the megacorp that looms over 2054 Paris wants her back, and the cop assigned to find her finds lots of other things, too. There is a nice level of ambiguity about the motives of key players, and a darkly satisfying ending. (Not what I was expecting, actually, but as soon as I realized where it was going, I thought to myself, yeah, that works.)

In addition to the brilliant animation, it's got some fine voice work. Daniel Craig is the detective, Jonathan Pryce the CEO with secrets, Ian Holm the aged scientist with secrets. It took me a while to place the folks whose work I know from other films because none of the people rotoscoped for the film are those actors. For instance, the CEO is a short, slightly jowly guy who reminded me of Joe Pesci. Pryce's voice fits him very well, it's just not the voice you'd expect for that particular look.

I believe I'll be rewatching this a few times before returning it to Netflix. Some of these scenes demand more attention.