Kickdrum

Just to preface - I read Les Aventures de Tintin when I was a very little kid, in original French. The Secret of the Unicorn (one of the few books this movie was based off of) was one of the books I read THE MOST as a kid. It was my favorite one.

*MILD SPOILERS*

First off, the movie is gorgeous visually. I usually HATE entire-CGI movies unless it’s stylised - and in this case, Tintin did indeed, stylise. Haddock has his characteristically large nose and tiny eyes, Tintin himself has his regular babyface and random badguys in the movie are exaggerated in such a way that Hergé would have drawn. The movie is well lit and scenes are rich and colourful.
People cried foul and uncanny valley on the human animation but I honestly don’t see it (on the humans, anyway).


Andy Serkis did a brilliant job mocapping everybody - he knew the characters well and moved appropriately, even adding little things like different walks for Haddock and Tintin and different facial ticks. I didn’t DOUBT Serkis, though, because I really liked his work in King Kong - and he was playing an ape in that. The characters were well-written, the dialouge was witty and fast, and so attuned to Hergé’s writing that I started to REMEMBER old things about Tintin because of how the script flowed.




What was kind of weird though was that there are two dogs (Snowy and a rottweiler), a cat, and a hawk and they all moved… kind of weird. It was obvious they kind of eyeballed animals and didn’t mocap them. I didn’t really notice the dogs at first but when this hawk came onscreen I was like “Wait!” - It might just be my birdgeek noticing but it was the only real problem I had with the actual CG itself.

On that last note about the visuals, the movie is also very stylish from a film standpoint - transitions and action sequences are almost completely unique to the movie. For example, while Tintin and Haddock are on a ship in the ocean, the shot zooms out, and the ship is suddenly tiny and in a puddle, which Tomson & Tompson step on as it just goes to their scene. I was really impressed because USUALLY CGI doesn’t take into mind what it can really DO from a cinematic standpoint.

WARNING TINTIN GEEKERY -
The story is a hybrid of three Tintin Stories - The Crab with the Golden Claws, Secret of the Unicorn, and Red Rackham’s treasure. I had NO idea they were going to do this - they tossed in a posture for Secret of the Unicorn during the (amazing) opening sequence. So I was like “Oh, so it’s secret of the Unicorn, m’kay.”
But then they pulled in story elements of the Crab with the Golden Claws, using its initial storyline to introduce Haddock and travel around the world - as it happened in the comics. The Unicorn storyline eventually took over - however, it was kind of ‘capped’ and hybridised with Red Reckham’s treasure. I loved this because they took the flimsy villain in The Secret of the Unicorn - Ivan Sakharine - and made him Red Reckham’s descendant, so he was motivated to persue the Unicorn’s treasure beyond being a rich, greedy asshole.




And of a last note, the action sequences are astounding. There’s car chases, plane rides, and AWESOME PIRATE BATTLE SWORDFIGHTS (imagine Pirates 3 but not shitty) and a CONSTRUCTION YARD CRANE FIGHT. I WISH I were joking. And thankfully, none of these felt forced like those stupid ‘action’ sequences in The Polar Express. Since this is Tintin, this level of rediculousness is already there, and it sweeps into a magnificent, long movie of thrills. This was also a movie that utilized 3D well - it enhanced all the action sequences (which will still be loads of fun in 2D) with explosions and swords coming at the viewer. Even if you don’t give a shit about Tintin, this movie has amazing, gripping action sequences - and you could WATCH this movie for just that.

This film was full of ambition and love - every member in the development team had and obvious care for Tintin and the world built around him. If you have the opportunity to see this movie, SEE IT before it’s gone. If not, buy it on DVD.