Review: The Adventures of Tintin

Tintin is an animated feature based upon the series of classic comic books created by Belgian artist, Hergé. It is directed by Steven Spielberg & Peter Jackson. This adventure sees the title character, played by Jamie Bell, try to uncover the mystery behind The Unicorn, an old warship.

It is motion captured performance, but the CGI is stunningly realistic, to the point of probably making Robert Zemeckis scratch his head with bemusement. The characters have been adapted very well from their comic counterparts, retaining all their hallmark traits in incredible detail. Though the character of Tintin did seem to lack expressiveness in his dead eyes, other characters such as Captain Haddock were brimming with life; this can be largely put down to the fantastic motion capture work of Andy Serkis.

Once the action takes place you can see just why Spielberg chose to make this an animated feature; it is an absolute spectacle, with buildings crumbling and ships breaking, encoming fantastic scope and freneticism. A chase scene through a fictitious Moroccan town is akin to something from you would expect to see from an Uncharted game, there is a truly epic scale of mayhem that is all choreographed with military precision; which of course takes its cue from the Indiana Jones series. Seamless transitions from location to location are well placed. Whilst the use of CG characters also allows for playful cartoon humor to remain and not be far removed; such as when Haddock gets struck with lightning and we see his skeleton or when he is sucked in to a propeller.

The script written by Joe Cornish, Edgar Wright & Steven Moffat is well paced with just the right comic punctuation, intrigue and timing. But, it is actually quite adult given it’s PG rating.

The only conceit I would have with this film is that it stops half way down the rabbit hole, due to the nature of the story being broken as per the comic. But the complaint of not having more is rather a reflection on my thorough enjoyment of the film. It offers something for all the family without any let up and is an exciting start to a franchise which definitely has more to offer.

Rating: 4/5

Reviewer: Dexter Kong
Release Date: 26th October 2011 (UK)
Rating: PG
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg

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