2 reviews

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Nick Daisley November 10, 2011

There is an astonishing array of talent involved in this, as revealed by the excellent, engaging opening credits: aside from the actors (who are all rendered by motion capture anyway) this film has been directed by Spielberg, produced by Peter Jackson, and written in part by Steven Moffat of the Dr Who programmes and Edgar Wright of Hot Fuzz etc - so it has no excuse not to be good, really.

Be warned though, if you remember the books better than I do you'll likely find yourself a bit nonplussed by the rather free and easy way that the themes and plots of at least three books have been brought together here: you'll have to sit back and let the film take you where it wants to go, because it will not follow the path you think it might.

You might also be shocked by - well, how REAL the whole thing is. There has been a spate of reinventions of comic strips by Hollywood in recent years, many of which work brilliantly. Gritty realism was never part of the deal with Tintin, but that's what you get here, with some startling violence!

This is a very different creation from the books, and has to be judged on its own merits. Loud delighted laughter from the audience last night - from small children to ancients - confirmed our opinion it is hugely entertaining, and it is good to see that it leaves plenty of room for sequels.

First the good aspects of this film. The special effects are amazing, verging on real, the action is non-stop, the characters made to appear rather like the original Hergé drawings. It is hard to fault this aspect to the film. My only criticism is that Tintin in particular lacks any kind of emotional face response. His eyes are just dead eyes, the special effects are just not up to that, despite the reality of the rest of the work.

The less good. The action sequences just go on in true Spielberg fashion for way too long. The scene in Baqaa where an eagle, Snowy, Tintin and Haddock are fighting desperately to secure the scrolls is a case in point. Gravity defying stunts follow one another over and over again until the viewer is left feeling quite ill. These scenes should have been cut back substantially. Another over the top scene is the ship battle between the Unicorn and Red Rackham's ship. In the hands of Spielberg is becomes another gravity-defying joke, rather like the execrable scenes in Pirates of the Caribbean 3 where the pirate ships sail around to 200 ft waves while going down a giant sinkhole. This was the same type of thing. The original story is quite brilliant and directly in contrast.

Perhaps also in an attempt to bulk out the film Spielberg commits the sin of ruining a quite brilliant story from Hergé, mindlessly incorporating aspects of The Crab with the Golden Claws and messing with the storyline. He brings in Bianca Castafiore as well. He makes Dr Sakarine a relative of Red Rackham and creates silly subplots with Haddock as a result.

For those not familiar with the story it's probably a good film. For the purist, Speilberg messes with sacred stories and ruins the original plot. In this he follows in the proudest footsteps of Hollywood.

Tom 14 Nov 2011