The Adventures of Tintin

The Adventures of Tintin is brought down by its comic book source with the central hero, who, in my opinion, lacks charisma and earns no sympathy from me. I completely missed out on the comic book series, even when I was part of the target age group. On the other hand, it is necessary to acknowledge Steven Spielberg for making the most out of the limited space offered by the comic book world and creating a typical Indiana Jones-like adventure ride, lightened by plenty of clever jokes and crazy action stunts. However, Indiana Jones has a big advantage in terms of the main character - a likable adventurer with a careless appearance and definitely not perfect, whereas Tintin, with his slick hairstyle, simply lacks spark and is rather boring. In comparison to Indiana Jones, the supporting characters are generally not interesting, except for the perpetually alcohol-soaked captain and his villainous adversary. Truth be told, the story itself doesn't have the potential to captivate the audience, but then again, we have Spielberg's amazing ability to enchant mainly male audiences of all ages with an adventurous spectacle, which makes even old dads gladly return to their early teenage years when they devoured cheap paperback books with eye-catching covers. We also have Spielberg's traditional professional perfectionism and the generous budget afforded by previous commercial hits. The result is a very decent and, within the current pop culture, highly above-average commercial spectacle, essentially an action blockbuster for the whole family. Furthermore, Spielberg understands the possibilities of animated film and knows how to work magic with both the camera and computers, adding a dimension to the traditional Indiana Jones stunts that are only possible in an animated film. Spielberg, at the same time, indulges his viewers a little by including references to his previous famous works. Try to guess who his Moroccan emir resembles, for example. I may not come back to Tintin anytime soon, but of all the highly anticipated animated blockbusters this year, it appealed to me the most and unquestionably surpassed films like Rango and many others. Overall impression: 85%. (21/11/2011)

A seemingly ideal combination of Spielberg and Hergé's comic book albums "The Crab with the Golden Claws," "The Secret of the Unicorn" and "Red Rackham's Treasure." Unfortunately, it used motion capture animation that ruined the whole thing. Personally, I remain faithful to the series and the old 1947 puppet film. (29/03/2022)

A technically perfect flick with a lot of visual ideas, but its inwardly impersonal and not funny at all. Did any of the characters work their way into your heart? Did Thomson and Thompson make you laugh? I suspect that this whole thing is just the first of the trailers for a future tourist attraction at Universal Studios. The BRILLIANT action scene in Morocco (which is the only highlight of the film apart from the opera scene) seems to indicate as much. (07/11/2011)

The boyish dream of Spielberg, who is only brought down by unnecessary megalomania, which sometimes kills space for subtle finesse. But other than that, I've been riding this wave from the beginning like a little bastard. The Adventures of Tintin is a beautifully simple, joyful and straightforward film about which there is no point in discussing anything at all. Steven created something that once held me breathless for hours and hours while reading adventure novels. A beautiful film. (27/10/2011)

There was something missing... Something, something, something... But what was it? The film had pace, it was funny and suspenseful, the animation was perfect, Williams' music was great (how I miss those honest orchestral pieces) and Steven Spielberg took his proverbial toy-ness to a new level. If you're also wondering why Tintin wasn't made with live actors and in a real setting, the answer is easy: Spielberg would lose a camera that he can do absolutely anything he wants with, and that would be a huge shame. It is thanks to it that he served us a decent number of (without exaggeration) unforgettable scenes (apart from the chase in Morocco mentioned by everyone, I would like to highlight especially the breathtaking naval battle, which is equal to the craziest escapades of Verbinski's Pirates of the Caribbean, and the final bombastic duel of cranes), which definitely makes it worth going to the movie theatre to see this. In 3D. If someone is bothered by the bland main character, it's certainly not the film's fault - the three-dimensional Tintin is practically identical to the paper version. And that's a good thing. At least Captain Haddock, who is the main character anyway, will stand out more. So why don't I give it a full score when I'm so happy with everything? Well, it's because of the ending. I found the last minutes of the "search and find" strangely drawn out and was actually quite surprised that Tintin was "only" an hour and three quarters long. I didn't know the runtime beforehand and I guessed it to be about two hours (and a bit) by the end.__P.S. The Jaws parody was divine.__P.P.S. Hergé's digital cameo was just as good. (13/11/2011)