The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn Movie Review
2011, directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by Peter Jackson
Reviewed by Tim. S
You’ll be hard-pressed to
find anyone who hasn’t heard of Tintin; the iconic young Belgian reporter with
his signature tuft of hair, trench coat and faithful companion Snowy, who
embarked upon countless adventures to thwart drug smugglers, human traffickers
and various crime syndicates.
Even political struggles and
revolutions couldn’t have happened without Tintin’s intervention; General
Alcazar could never have launched a successful revolution in San Theodoros against
General Tapioca in Tintin and the Picaros,
and Tintin helps King Muskar XII retain his reign of Syldavia in King Ottokar’s Scepter when an elaborate
plot by separatist revolutionaries to oust the king is set into play.
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| Original badass. |
Tintin’s got quite a set
globe-trotting of adventures under his belt, having been to practically every
continent on the planet, meeting countless people along the way. Though Tintin
books were penned and published for over fifty years, the protagonist and his
cohorts remained as a timeless, ageless piece of history.
I personally have a very
close emotional bond with the Tintin books and cartoons; the 1990s cartoon
series was airing when I was young; and our local library also stocked the
books (which were nearly impossible to acquire without a specific request). I
can’t help but feel that watching and reading Tintin has somehow shaped the
life that I lead from thereon (maybe that’s why I chose to study journalism).
Having said that, I was
highly skeptical when I’d heard about plans to take the humble Belgian reporter
to the big screen; Hollywood doesn’t have a good reputation when it comes to
respecting screen history, and after another element of my childhood, The Smurfs, was mercilessly slaughtered
by Tinsel town producers, I was questioning as to whether Tintin could ever be
faithfully re-created in a respectful, elegant manner.
On that note, I can safely
say that the Speilberg/Jackson adaptation of the 20th century’s
original action hero is just as true to the source material as any diehard fan
could ask for.
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| "We've got to get off this boat, no time to find your beard trimmer" |
The moment where my heart
really smiled was actually right at the start of the film; during the lovingly
recreated weekend markets scene, we see a caricature artist capturing the
likeness of the off-screen protagonist; upon completion of the piece, he turns
his artwork to his subject, uttering the words “This is a good likeness” and
hands the hero, Tintin a caricature of himself rendered in his classic,
timeless comic-book form in a paradoxical sort of cinematic self-revelation.
The artist is then revealed,
and it is indeed none other than Tintin creator Herge’ himself. The veritable
father of Tintin, appearing in the film that he is single-handedly posthumously
responsible for is perhaps the ultimate in respects, and in an indirect way, is
perhaps the singular most important element in the film. I almost broke down
into tears of happiness upon viewing this scene.
Sentiments aside, the film
delivers strong performances from Jamie Bell (Tintin) as the eponymous,
altruistic journalist, Andy Serkis as the often drunk and dysfunctional Captain
Haddock and his ancestor, Sir Francis Haddock. Daniel Craig stars opposite the
lead duo as the malevolent Mr Ivan Ivanovitch Sakharine and Red Rackham. Also
starring are Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as bumbling yet loveable detectives
Thomson and Thompson.
The dysfunctional father-son
style relationship between Haddock and Tintin is recreated faithfully from the
original source material, while adding in lots of character-specific quirks;
just as soon as Tintin formulates a plot, the Captain will almost immediately,
albeit unintentionally foil it in his own comical style. Perhaps the most
radical departure from the original source material is the character of Mr
Sakharine; originally a minor character from the books, he was an innocuous,
middle-aged model ship collector and builder with black hair, a beard and
glasses who took an interest in the model Unicorn, as his collection had one
identical to it.
In the film, he has been drastically recast as the primary
antagonist, where in the books this role was assigned to the Bird Brothers. This
was somewhat jarring at first, but the film didn’t take the liberty for no
reason; the colour-coded similarities between the ancient pirate, Red Rackham
and his presently portrayed descendant, Mr Sakharine work to good effect; it allows
some clever use of Mise En Scene, and draw up a nice contrast between the
heroes and the villain both striving for a common goal; to unite the clues
which will allow them to reach the sunken wreck of the Unicorn and its hidden
treasures before the other.
The motion-captured action
works extremely well, and grants a degree of freedom over the film that
wouldn’t have worked with traditionally acted characters. At the same time, the
film has an extremely broad appeal; older fans of Tintin will appreciate the
faithfully adapted settings, characters and artifacts, while the film doesn’t alienate
a younger, modern audience; a lot of the conflict is sanitized, with blood only
used extremely sparingly for some key scenes. Other than that, the action is
mostly family-friendly and certainly isn’t objectionable.
Some of the more complex
action and chase scenes are quite spectacular, and use the 3D visual effects
quite well; 3D in general is a visual display technology still in its infancy,
and its applications have been somewhat hit-and-miss (mostly miss), as most
films will shoot on traditional film or 2D digital, and only apply the 3D
effects in post-production. However, being an entirely CGI movie, the 3D
effects were much more effective at creating a world with depth and
perspective, as opposed to adding it in for the sake of being 3D.
Most importantly, the
setting of Tintin is the classic, timeless mid 20th century Europe that we remember and love. I was very happy to see
that Tintin wasn’t modernized, or brought into the 21st century.
Every detail of his town, apartment block, and even the sea freighter (The
Karaboudjan) have been painstakingly mapped out for maximum fidelity to the
original source material and time period, and it works so well.
Perhaps most exciting is the
prospect of further Tintin films; there’s already been talk of adapting the
stories of The Seven Crystal Balls,
and its follow-up adventure Prisoners of
the Sun. I felt that these stories would make the best movie adaption, as
I’d always considered those two stories to connect as one larger Tintin ‘movie’
within the cartoon series.
Overall, Tintin was a
delightful, amazingly fun film to watch, and is a rare example of when Hollywood remakes actually
get it right.
If you see only one film
this year, make it this one.
