I haven't been impressed by Pre-rendered cinematics for anything video game related in something close to five years now, but I stumbled on this today. Facial expressions seem to be the key for realism. Who knows, maybe the next star wars films will be 7-9. Populated entirely by rendered cg actors.

I presume you haven't seen the L.A. Noire trailer? I suggest you do.

I have actually. Though this trailer is dressed with dramatic lighting and better textures. It took me a few seconds to realize what I was watching wasn't live action.
LA Noir looks great in the facial department, but the bodies look like ken-dolls with clay clothing. It's convincing when you watch the characters talk, but any attention drawn away from the face ceases to draw me in.
Though my main point is that the quality on this pre-rendered cinematic is above what we usually see, and I'm wondering why it's taken years for that to finally happen again.

Probably because they have to avoid the uncanny valley. It's not okay to be just "good" at facial expressions. You have to be near perfect, otherwise it looks like everyone is dead and extremely creepy. It's one of the most problematic issues with computer generated humans.

Since that wasn't often possible, they purposefully make it look less realistic, to avoid the uncanny valley.

Still has a certain 'cg look'.

I liked LA Noir expressions better. But this definitely gets me pumped for the new Batman!