The Adventures of Tintin

I've already said much of what I had to say about how much I like the character of Tintin a couple of days ago in my review of Tintin and the Mystery of the Golden Fleece, an old French adaptation of the character. In short: I'm a big fan. But even if I wasn't already a fan, I would have been pretty psyched for this new movie.

You see, The Adventures of Tintin's geek credibility is through the roof. It's directed by Steven Spielberg, and produced by Peter Jackson. The screenplay is credited to current Doctor Who/Sherlock showrunner Steven Moffat, Shaun of the Dead/Scott Pilgrim writer/director Edgar Wright, and Attack the Block writer/director Joe Cornish. It features Daniel Craig, AKA James Bond as the villain, Andy Serkis, AKA Gollum as the sidekick, and Shaun of the Dead's Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as the comic relief.

Holy crap!

The Adventures of Tintin is the story of boy reporter Tintin, who purchases a model ship at a market. Within the ship is a clue to hidden pirates' gold that leads him and his dog Snowy on a globetrotting adventure filled with peril and intrigue. Along the way, he gets help from dunderhead inspectors Thompson and Thomson and everybody's second favorite drunk seaman with an anger management problem (the first being Donald Duck, who must have been hitting the sauce, right?), Captain Haddock.

The movie was filmed using the performance capture method, where the actors' performances are fed into computers and then animated to look like the characters they're playing. These movies never seem to perform very well, mostly because of the often zombie-like rendered appearances of the characters. The technology has come a long way since Polar Express, though, and I have to say, it didn't really bother me this time around. There's no attempt in Tintin to make the characters look photo-real; rather, they're made to look like the human equivalent of creator Herge's art style.

Spielberg seems to be having a field day, letting his camera and imagination run wild. Positioning the camera in places that would otherwise be physically impossible in a live action film. The action centerpiece of the film is a huge, complex chase sequence done in a single shot. I'm not sure he captures Herge's spirit, exactly, but I think he manages to emphasize the stylistic and tonal qualities that the two of them have in common.

The cast all seem to be having fun as well, and are all perfect fits for their characters, particularly Jamie Bell in the title role. Pegg and Frost are quite impressive at making themselves indistinguishable from each other as the Thom(p)sons, especially considering how different they look in person. The dog, Snowy, is a purely CGI creation, but interacts perfectly with the actors, and perfectly captures the dog's personality from the comics. John Williams delivers a fun, upbeat score, that actually surprised me. In my mind, I expected it to be more along the lines of Indiana Jones, given the similar nature of the stories.

I'm honestly not sure if everyone will enjoy The Adventures of Tintin like I did. I have to admit, I was pretty inclined to like it from the get-go. I'm still not sure if America at large has any real reason to care about the character. Luckily for me, the rest of the world loves him, so a sequel is already on the way. Yay, Tintin!

Tintin and the Mystery of the Golden Fleece

Before Spielberg's recent The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn was released, most of us here in America didn't even know Tintin was a "thing". Well, guess what, us? It's been around for a good long time! I remember the cartoon on HBO when I was a kid, even though I didn't really watch it. I started reading the comics a couple years ago, and found that I really enjoyed them. There's a certain timeless purity to them that appeals to me in the same way that, say, Astro Boy does.

Tintin and the Mystery of the Golden Fleece was a live-action French take on the characters from 1961. That's right, 50 years ago! That makes this one of the very first comic book movies ever made. All of the characters everybody outside of America knows and loves are here: boy journalist Tintin, his little dog Snowy, indistinguishable bumbling inspectors Thomson and Thompson, lovable drunk Captain Haddock, and deaf inventor Professor Calculus (who is not in the Spielberg film).

The story follows Tintin and Captain Haddock, as Haddock learns an old shipmate of his has died and left him his boat. With the boat are clues to a treasure (there's always a treasure). Tintin, Haddock and Snowy race the bad guys (there's always bad guys) to follow the clues and find the treasure. It's actually an original story, though there are elements lifted from Red Rackham's Treasure, one of the books the new film lifts from. They both really take an idea from that story and put a different twist on it, so one doesn't spoil the other.

In some ways, this movie actually captures the look and feel of the comics better than Spielberg's film. They have real actors dressed as the characters. I kind of preferred the exaggerated features on the CG renditions, but this movie shows that a live action movie could have been done too. Snowy wasn't nearly as cool in this movie, since he was a real dog and therefore limited to what he could be taught to do. The dude playing Tintin looks exactly like he should. I'm not sure if it's the early 60's Technicolor look or what, but the color scheme actually matched Herge's coloring style more than the new movie did. It's brighter and more primary looking.

The production values in Tintin and the Mystery of the Golden Fleece are actually pretty good. I think it was a pretty big popcorn movie in France at the time, not just a little B-production. There is some location shooting, I think in Greece. There's some fun little chases and action sequences, but nothing huge, unsurprisingly. Tintin gets in a few fist fights and they're actually pretty cool, seeing him kicking some ass.

I'm sure The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn is going to create a few new fans of the character in America. I mean, I'm not expecting it to blow up, but it's definitely getting a bit of exposure. This old movie is probably not worth seeking out unless you already love the world of Tintin. If you did enjoy the movie, and the movie opened your eyes to the comics, then you will probably get a big kick out of Tintin and the Mystery of the Golden Fleece. There are other Tintin movies out there, too.