Featuring the Voices of: Daniel Craig, Jamie Bell, Simon Pegg, Andy Serkis, Cary Elwes, Toby Jones, Nick Frost, Tony Curran, Sebastian Roché, Mackenzie Crook and Daniel Mays
Directed By: Steven Spielberg
Screenplay By: Steven Moffat and Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish
Based on “The Adventures of Tintin” By: Hergé
Produced By: Peter Jackson, Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy
Distributor: Paramount Pictures/Columbia Pictures
Rating: PG, for adventure action violence, some drunkenness and brief smoking.
Running Time: Approximately 107 minutes
Website: tintin.com
Budget: $130 million
Genre: Action/Adventure/Animation
Release Date: December 21, 2011
A few years ago, when word came out that filmmaking titans Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson were teaming up to do a trilogy of films based on Belgium cartoonist Hergé’s The Adventures of Tintin comic book series with the hope of launching a successful film franchise à la Indiana Jones, fan boys howled, theater owners swooned, and the rest of us wondered, “Why are they interested in backing three films about a trained police dog?”
Get it? Rin Tin Tin. Anyway…
While the adventures of Hergé’s young, intrepid, ginger-haired reporter Tintin, and his beloved pooch, Snowy, are wildly popular abroad, their stateside fan base is only slightly higher than that of water polo, but not quite on par with the WNBA.
For the uninitiated, a little back-story on how The Adventures of Tintin came to be: Spielberg has been wanting to make a film version of the Tintin series since the early-1980s when, according to published reports, he first heard of the series while reading a review that compared Raiders of the Lost Ark to Tintin. Finally armed with a script that he was happy with for a proposed live-action version circa 2007, Spielberg approached Jackson about having his special effects company, Weta Digital, work on the film. Jackson, a longtime fan on the series, convinced Spielberg that motion capture, not live-action, was the way to go to do full justice to Hergé’s vision.
As it turns out, Jackson, who will direct the second proposed film in the trilogy, was absolutely right.
Up until now, Rango has had a stranglehold on the title of 2011’s best animated feature –that title now resides with The Adventures of Tintin, which marks Spielberg’s first foray into directing an animated film.
Working from three of Hergé’s Tintin adventures (The Crab with the Golden Claws, The Secret of the Unicorn, and Red Rackham’s Treasure) screenwriters Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish deserve mad props for keeping the action-packed film loose, fun and endlessly engaging. As they say, “If it ain’t on the page, it ain’t on the stage,” and boy what a stage Spielberg, Jackson and company have created.
From the moment the plot-illuminating opening credits sequence starts, you know you’re in for a rollicking thrill ride. And once the globe-trotting adventure gets underway, you can’t help but feel like you’re in the thick of it alongside Tintin (played by Billy Elliot star Jamie Bell), his dog Snowy and boozehound Captain Haddock (expertly played by motion capture performance king Andy Serkis, best known for playing Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy) as they travel by sea, land and air in search of a long lost treasure that an unscrupulous businessman, memorably played by Daniel Craig, also wants to get his hands on.
I defy anyone to not be awestruck by the film’s two best action set pieces: a crash landing into the Sahara during a thunderstorm, and a high speed chase through city streets in an utterly preposterous yet undeniably spectacular sequence that plays in one long, continuous take.
Presented in 3-D, in arguably the best use of the ubiquitous filmmaking technique to date, the film jumps from one magical locale to the next, and allows for some truly jaw-dropping visuals (including POVs) that have to be seen to be fully appreciated. That said, the jury is still out on motion capture technology. It still needs some fine-tuning: the eyes have a tendency to look hollow and, at times, skin looks waxier than that of a middle-aged housewife addicted to Botox.
But if it’s one thing that Spielberg is a bonafide genius at, it’s having the innate ability to wow moviegoers of all ages when he’s in full-blown popcorn moviemaking mode. He certainly does not disappoint with The Adventures of Tintin.
4.5 stars (out of 5)
