Movie Review: The Adventures of Tintin

“Tintin and Captain Haddock set off on a treasure hunt for a sunken ship commanded by Haddock’s ancestor. But someone else is in search of the ship.”

Genre : Action, Motion Capture

Director : Steven Spielberg

Writers : Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish, Steven Moffat, based on Herge

Cast : Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Daniel Craig

Tintin is an iconic comic book and television character but never before have we seen him up on the silver screen. The sweater wearing redhead is considered something of an entertainment antique and may not even be recognizable to the younger generations – especially here in the United States.

Who better to dust off the old fella than Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish and John Williams? Believe it or not, this is Spielberg’s first ever animated film. Though, I should clarify, the film is actually considered an animated motion capture 3D film that’s incredibly realistic. This is a film that Spielberg has been trying to get off the ground ever since he purchased the rights to the film back in 1983. Dr. Who writer Steven Moffat wrote the first draft and then dynamic duo Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish (Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim, Attack the Block) joined forces to put their touch on an action packed script. The dialogue is incredibly well written with authentic British conversation and highly entertaining characters.

Spielberg, Jackson, Wright and Cornish brought in their most talented friends to boost the quality of the film. The other two members of the Edgar Wright rat-pack, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, star as the comedy policemen known as Thomson and Thompson. Jackson brings in Andy Serkis who, not only is the biggest motion capture guy in Hollywood, he’s now the 2^nd unit director for the upcoming Hobbit movies. Jamie Bell, most commonly known as Jimmy in Jackson’s King Kong film is the lead and makes the character of Tintin his own. And of course Spielberg brings in John Williams to compose a unique yet familiar musical score. And he brings in his go-to cinematographer Janusz Kaminski to really make the film come to life with some stunning single shot action sequences.

Enough name dropping, lets discuss the film. The plot is focused on a fabled pirate ship called the…Unicorn. I’m pretty sure they could have come up with a more pirate like name, but they wanted to stay true to the source material. With the lost ship is lots of lost treasure, as one would assume. So a bunch of people go looking for the treasure from an age-old feud generations in the making…that’s it in a nutshell. Hey, it’s not the destination; it’s the journey, right? Many of the plot elements were taken straight from several different Tintin comics and combined into one story.

The film is absolutely brimming over with action. Every couple of minutes there’s a sword fight or explosion or car chase or CRANE FIGHT! Seriously, there’s a massive amount of action. And that’s the best and only redeeming quality to this film.

It’s all done in motion capture, which means the entire film was acted with real performers and then a coat of CGI paint was put over them. Andy Serkis is of course the highlight of the film with his portrayal of Captain Haddock. He was instantly recognizable behind the digital curtain and gave a very fitting voice for the character.

The motion capture allows Spielberg to do some things with a camera that he’s never done before. Being his first animated film, he’s always had to use the camera in a live action setting but now he can move without limitation and he absolutely took advantage of that. It’s still the iconic Spielberg eye but presented in a way that we’ve never seen before.  We move under passing cars, fly with birds and weaves through rooms without stopping.

The art style of the film is a redesigned more realistic approach while keeping the iconic look. As a result, we get a strange pseudo-realistic look. It’s a little off-putting to see cartoon features on an otherwise realistic canvas. The same conflict can be seen in the action itself. While people are dying left and right from the fight sequences, the main characters seem to be able to survive bombs and airplane propellers for the sake of cartoonish comedy. There’s even a scene where someone burps into an airplane fuel tank to keep it flying. The comedy is very fifty-fifty. At times it’s brilliant but often it’s agonizingly, childish, physical comedy that’s rehashed every fifteen minutes.

As a result, we get the first of many reasons of why the audience never really feels involved in the film. Instead of being sucked into this world, I felt like I was on the outside looking in. The filmmakers should have kept it one way or the other. Either go the cartoon route or take the realistic route but don’t wobble back and forth. Obviously, the goal was to create cartoon characters that are made of flesh and blood but the universe it creates suffers from the design. That’s not to say that the visual style is bad. In fact, it’s a vibrant and unbelievably, detailed piece of work. Either way, it’s been a good year for WETA digital, which did the CGI for Rise of the Planet of the Apes, as they present another glorious, visual treat.

Despite the great special effects, The Adventures of Tintin is a shallow, superficial adventure without heart. It assumes you know all the characters and never stops to introduce or develop any of them for the audience. Tintin himself felt like he’s just along for the ride as Captain Haddock steals the show. Even Tintin’s awesome wonder dog has more to do in this movie then he does. We never once actually care about these characters and as a result, are unable to draw any connections or concern for them. You can throw as many bad guys at them as you want and I didn’t even care. The characters are the weakest part. As for the villain, he’s as generic as it gets, and I don’t think anyone would recognize Daniel Craig’s boring voice work if you didn’t see his name in the credits.

The plot was thin, not fully explained and felt like a all-purpose Saturday morning cartoon episode. This, as I understand it, is exactly how Tintin should feel. So I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing, provided you’re a Tintin fan.

Given the talent involved, I had expected much more. The Adventures of Tintin can best be described as a cartoon version of an Indiana Jones adventure. It’s a film that will probably only be appreciated by young boys who will be drawn in by the Saturday morning serial atmosphere.  Rent it.