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.

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 20^th century’s original action hero is just as true to the source material as any diehard fan could ask for.

"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 20^th century Europe that we remember and love. I was very happy to see that Tintin wasn’t modernized, or brought into the 21^st 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.