The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn review

Tintin: There's a clue to another treasure. How's your thirst for adventure, Captain? 
Captain Haddock: Unquenchable, Tintin. 

Directors: Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson
(2011)

With Pixar failing to make a good film in 2011 and DreamWorks punching below their weight (again), masterful director Steven Spielberg has stepped up and delivered what could well be my favourite animation of the year, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.

Based on 3 of the original comics by Herge, Spielberg, Peter Jackson and their trio of writers and avid Tintin fans (Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish and Steven Moffat) has seamlessly blended these stories into one coherent narrative. After purchasing a model ship, our titular hero Tintin is pursued by the mysterious, yet threatening Sakharine (Daniel Craig). He teams up with Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis) to track down the clues to a long lost treasure. It’s not a particularly original or memorable story, but neither was Raiders of the Lost Ark. Its most definitely typical Spielberg, it’s all about the adventure and excitement of the journey between A to B rather than what the final destination actually is. In fact, it's a great deal like Raiders, only with gorgeous motion capture animation instead of dusty tombs and Harrison Ford.

And by gorgeous, I mean stunning, awe inspiring, face meltingly (see what I did there?) gorgeous. Textures are brimming with detail, sand and water effects are beautiful and the actual animation is lifelike. While motion capture technology has had its fair share of ups and downs (most notably characters with the cursed ‘dead eye’) Spielberg and Jackson have used it to what currently seems like its fullest potential. The performances are good too, with every actor donning the ball suits doing a solid job. Many don’t class motion capture as ‘true animation’,  and consider it cheating when live action performances are converted to digital characters, but when the results are as astounding as this, they really shouldn’t care as much as they do.

The highlight of Tintin is easily the delightful action scenes. Sword fights, shootouts and chases, Tintin is jammed full of action. The highlight, a motorbike chase through a desert city is done in one continuous take. The camera snakes through buildings and streets, effortlessly switching between different characters on the fly as explosions erupt and buildings crumble. Yet despite their visual splendour and ferocious tempo, the pacing of these scenes is poor. It takes almost half of the film until we get one of the great action scenes. Once the action does start, it doesn’t really stop, and at times it’s like Spielberg is trying to drown us in fights and the films climax suffers because it happens incredibly close to the aforementioned motorbike chase. There’s little to break these scenes up, and despite the climax being sensational, it feels like it overstays its welcome due to the lack of downtime beforehand.

The first 30 minutes also exhibit problems and are a little too focused on making events very black and white. Tintin constantly speaks to himself pointing out various, and obvious plot points. It’s as if Spielberg and Jackson don’t think we’ll understand the content in these scenes, despite the simple story and perfect camerawork that frames every detail. We’re shown what we’re needed to know; there’s no need to tell us as well. Humour is light in both quantity and quality in this opening 3^rd too, and we have half an hour of average scenes before we get too the good stuff.

If Tintin was directed by a director who starts as he means to go on, we would have had a distinctively average film on our hands. But Spielberg and Jackson just don’t make films that way. What we have are 2 fantastic directors using relatively new technology in ways that produce enjoyable content. The films conclusion may have been crafted for the sole purpose of setting up the inevitable sequel, but Tintin is a franchise that I would certainly love to see more of.

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