However sophisticated your computer-generated imagery is, if it's been created from no physical elements and you haven't shot anything, it's going to feel like animation.
The gentle, unforced charm of the animation feels like the very best of book illustration come to miraculous life, but with a strong, almost Hitchcockian streak of excitement and danger.
Without being self-consciously adult or ironic in its themes and stories, it really captures the freedom and excitement of what it feels like to first discover animation when you're young.
The art looks great, and the animation feels like a natural part of the experience.
The main characters and things like guards generally look great and are animated well, but NPCs have what feels like pre-Half-Life idle animations, dead eyes, and atrocious voice acting.
Mostly, she just wants her mother to live, and their time together feels like a kind of suspended animation.
Raimi did not want it to feel entirely like animation, so none of the shots were 100% computer generated.
Whilst you know it's photography, it still feels like it has a relationship with animation.
Although the animation finds a steady balance between spontaneity and meticulous detail, it still feels like it was precisely the animator's vision, unhinged.
It tosses out a few funny bits, but it mostly feels like an excuse to feature some 3-D animation".
