As a fan of Cracked.com, the only thing I knew about Tintin was that, like all old-school comics, there were some pretty controversial stuff in an issue or two. So, as I review this movie please do not be angry or offended at my lack of knowledge of the comic series. This is simply my opinion based solely on the movie. And (un)fortunately for me, I watched this movie in 3D. So here’s my review of one of Steven Spielberg’s and Peter Jackson’s newest film, The Adventures of Tintin.
The good
I’m going to start out by saying that this movie has beautiful computer graphics. I’m not sure if the 3D helped bring out the details and realism of this movie, but I couldn’t stop gawking at it for the beginning of the movie. It was simply stunning. That aside, I definitely felt that this type of animation complemented the story; or perhaps it is the other way around. Speaking of which, the story for this movie was not half-bad. Tintin, a reporter who writes about discovering awesome stuff (you can see his articles in one scene of the movie), buys a ship called the “Unicorn.” Unknowingly, he is hurled in a world of adventure as he tries to unlock the secrets of this ship model.
And of course one of the secrets include buried treasure. Sounds typical, right? Well, I was surprised at a lot of the unique elements this story had. Granted it still followed the “good guy wins, bad guy loses” model, but since this is based off a comic book, that’s kind of a given. As I haven’t read the series, I found the characters quite interesting, though with a lack of back story (assuming it is covered in the comics), I felt like there were cameos or moments that die-hard Tintin fans would be giddy over. The voice acting was superb though, and very synchronized!
The bad
Speaking of the story and the characters, there were some minor annoyances I found. There are some scenes where physics would not allow certain events to happen, and then there is Tintin, his dog Snowy and the Captain, Haddock. At the beginning, I honestly felt like Tintin was one of the least perceptive person ever. His dog, who is totally adorable, seems to discover 85% of stuff that moves the story along. Hmm. And not only that, but Tintin deals a lot of property damage in the places he’s at. Although he is running from the bad guys, he still destroys almost half of an entire city. I felt like the only thing he can do is stuff that the dog can’t, like talk and use his opposable thumbs to beat up people… oh wait, the dog did a great job at beating the bad guys up. My point stands! And did I forget to mention that (spoiler) it was Tintin’s fault that an FBI agent died?
Plus, Tintin seemed to rely a lot on Captain Haddock, who was the key to unlocking the secrets of the Unicorn. According to Wikipedia, Haddock is sarcastic and insults people with words like “nitwit” and “nimcompoop,” but in the movie he was just a drunk with amnesia. I don’t think it did justice to the original character. Plus, I wasn’t really hooked into the story until he regained his memories and explained the plot more clearly. The beginning was interesting, but in my head I was just thinking, “Okay… now what?”
3D Effects
So was this totally necessary? I don’t think so, unless the quality of the animation would be compromised when going to 2D. Were there a lot of stuff that popped out? Eh, not really. But the HD-ness of the movie was totally worth it to me. Plus, I didn’t really get a headache so props to them for doing a decent 3D film.
The Breakdown
Despite the little blips I had about the story, I didn’t find any major plot holes or huge things that turned me away from the movie. All in all, it was enjoyable and totally worth the hour and some minutes (it was a little more than an hour and a half) in the theater. Although the movie is old-ish (2011), I’d say go and watch it while you can. The theatre was almost empty the other day, but I love empty theaters since I’m just bad with crowds.
Verdict
Plot – 7.5/10
Characters – 8/10
Visuals – 9/10
Music – 8/10
Total – 8/10