Let us begin with the look and feel of the film. Spielberg's biggest challenge with this film was to recreate the child like innocence of Tintin mixed with the sense of adventure that is brought across by the fast paced fun books. I can totally see why he decided to shoot the film in the animation style that it is in. Tintin with actors we know and love would destroy the fantasy and the image of the icon, however, the cartoon in 2D would obviously not come across well to cinema. The animation that has been chosen therefore gets the best of both worlds, there is not only the sense of realism that comes with the 3D but also the audience keeps it's iconic image of Tintin with as little of his character's appearance lost as possible. In my opinion this tactic taken by the film makers totally paid off. I was engrossed in the world of Tintin taking it as for real for a couple of hours but the whole time I knew that this was not my world but the colourful world of the hero of my childhood. This is obviously hard to explain but I imagine that many would come out with the same feeling, and even those who had not read the books would come out having experienced Tintin's universe. The 3D effects are also the cherry on top, although they are in no means perfect. They sometimes seem clunky and placed in the film just for the sake of having it in 3D not to improve the movie. However there are some scenes like that of the naval battle where you are simply stunned by the brilliance of the Directing combined with the 3D. My heart was in my mouth for some scene just because of the way the film was shot and the way the 3D was not only coming out towards me but dragging me into the film at the same time. Now that's the positives out of the way, let's scrape the barrel and find us some negatives. The look of the film will split the opinion because I imagine there will be some purists to the stories of Tintin that will claim that the charm of the characters, Tintin's key factor, is lost. With all the emphasis on the look of Tinitin's world the appearance of the characters seems to have been rushed slightly which means slightly less connection to the characters. There is foundation for this argument with Tintin's features especially looking slightly dull in his close ups and the charm of captain Haddock is lost in his large CGI cheeks which almost hide his eyes. I would have to agree slightly with this argument but the look and feel of the film as a whole is of a very high quality even with these slight blemishes.
Now onto the meat of a good film, the script and story. As written by Edgar Wright and Stephen Moffat I expected the script to be of a high standerd along with the story structure. I was proved right to a certain extent. The lines are witty and the screenplay is clever, which is exactly what I expected. There was nothing Sean of the Dead funny or Sherlock clever but that's not what Tintin is, Tintin is a mix of all the substances that make a great adventure story and it never choses to be specifically funny, clever, witty, dramatic. The story is a mish mash of lots of the Tintin stories but to be fair that's what I expected because it would take a script of pure genius to bleed one blockbuster from one Tintin book. However this is where I feel the script begins to take liberties. Yes it does have the right to mix and mash lots of stories however it at some points just feels like Tintin and the Captain are hopping from one set piece environment to another. One minute they are in the docks in Blighty, then the ocean by ship, then the air by plane, Africa (with many vehicles) then back to the docks. I just felt as a viewer that there was never enough time to establish a location. This to a ex-reader of the books slightly annoyed me because it didn't allow me to try and recognise famous locations from the books. It just felt that the writers had brilliant set piece ideas but no real idea how to link them together so they didn't bother and just threw them all together. There is barely any downtime between chases or action which does keep the audience in awe but is exhausting to watch. It could also be argued that there are to many chase/battle scenes and some time could have been used to flesh out the characters themselves and move not only Tintin and his friends tales of adventure to the big screens but move Tintin and his friends as people. The likes of the Thomson twins have very little screen time but what they have is very good so I felt, in the middle of another chase scene, could this time not be used for the better. However for all the negatives about the chase scenes and set pieces what there is is excellent and hugely entertaining.
Now let us swiftly onto the acting, though there is little I can say about it in an animated movie. All the actors do their respective jobs well and to a standard I expected. Daniel Craig does exceed my expectations but and actor of his quality shouldn't really be phased by this sort of role and he comfortably takes it in his stride. Nick Frost and Simon Pegg also exceeded my expectations because they had to react of each other and they did this well (in the time they were on screen) creating humor from the simplest of lines. Andy Serkis also does an good job bringing across the humor of the Captain and his rough alcoholic side but the star for me is Jaime Bell. In the original Tintin's Tintin himself does a lot of thinking in his head and obviously the large cartoon thinking bubble was not available to the Director so Jamie says it all out loud. Originally this seems weird to the audience but due to the believability of Jamie Bell's thinking out loud the audience quickly buys into the directing technique. This is no easy feat for Jamie Bell to do with just his voice but he does it well and deserves credit. However there is one limiting factor for all the actors in this film and that is as mentioned above, the lack of character development in the film as it's replaced with large set pieces. This means that although all of the actors can do good jobs, they cannot do brilliant jobs for they have not the lines to really show their skill as actors.
The Verdict
Spielberg has done well here. He has not created a film that will change the world and many will feel that the charm of Tintin was lost within the action of this high paced film. However, although there are mistakes and omissions, what this film does it does brilliantly. The 3D can be stunning, the script is very good and Tintin's world is opened magnificently although maybe it is spread to thinly. The actors do a good job with what they have to play with. I just feel that with a few subtle tweaks this could have been a generation defining film. If you get the chance see it at the cinema and if you get the chance watch it in 3D, you won't be disappointed if true fans may feel a little frustrated.
Rating: 8.0
Format: Cinema 3D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=op3w_ICK4us
