The eyes look dull because they're using very simple rendering techniques. I'd guess that they could make the eyes much more realistic by adding some simple optical effects like specularity or diffraction (http://www.graphics.cornell.edu/~westin/misc/fresnel.jpg).

One interesting thing that I noticed at 1:45 is that visible teeth can really change a person's appearance -- Bush doesn't seem to use his teeth at all when he talks.

That becomes really obvious in people like Daniel Craig who has blue eyes that appear to glow.

In some cases, movement of the eyelids when blinking is tracked and reflected in the model, but the texture is not changed to a closed eye quickly enough.