Rating of
2.5/4
jolly visual ride that loses its way
sreekirch - wrote on 03/17/12
Tintin is a good jolly visual ride that slowly sinks below the sea level.
The Adventures of Tintin is an American 3D animation film that reprises the great detective character tintin. The secret of unicorn which is been called outside north America is directed by ace person Steven Spielberg and produced by Peter Jackson. Spielberg for a while after making treasure movie Indiana Jones in 2007 is now back with another adventure motion capture film that follows the same pattern. This is very difficult to say a cent percent animation feature and neither easy to say a true motion capture film. The characters in the film are all looking partly generated and partly human. Plot takes its basics from the novel of the same title, whereas the action setups and some parts of narrative are made on its own style of charismatic appeal any Spielberg movie does.
This adventure of tintin is about finding the hidden treasure. The plot begins with Tintin buying a ship model called the unicorn from a sales mart. A rough person warns Tintin of its danger and asks him to leave it and go. Meanwhile Saccharine the arch rival easily identified by the look in the face wants that ship at any cost, but tintin refuses and reaches home. Saccharine steals the ship unfortunately with a lost metal piece that holds a secret letter. Tintin is caught and abducted by Saccharine. Tintin escapes with the help of snowy the dog and meets captain Haddock. After some pure running fun with the thugs the trio reaches a place where Haddock starts remembering his past life. The actual ancestral life of him. After some disturbance haddock finally finds the man behind him is actually Saccharine. He wants to use him and find the secret of unicorn. The adventure now begins.
With the runtime of nearly 110 minutes it looked a bit lengthy because of an intricate script. The first thirty was interesting and set the tone for the plot to open up. Characters were opened and their nature was very well understood. The next thirty looked a bit slow and had its lengthy over the top silly action scenes that may be appreciated for a while but ongoing it was slowly making me irritated. The last forty five was adventure without much logical reasoning and a badly dealt cumbersome climax. For example: when tintin chases a bird that holds a scroll in a small bike it looked funny. The set up was all nice. It was fast really fast and eye popping visuals holds the breath when tintin slides from a broken bike tire to a wire and finally breaking the glass and catching the bird. Interesting right! One scene like that can be easily praised. But it was going on and on with many chase scenes and such length in delivering an action scene is appreciable in case of motion pictures. Such length is not appreciable for animation backdrops. The plane chase was really funny but too sluggish and not so convincingly entertaining. Narrative was too much exploited and it was not caring for a sign of relief. With all such things infused in 110 minutes, tintin is a normal CGI feast that can be enjoyed in parts. Screenwriting was another problem. The plot was so convoluted that it was meant to be extended till the last minute. Steven Moflat probably thought that infusing a deep narration that had no much emotions and just plain action was over toasted and it spoilt the way movie began. Too much character exposition is observed here and that would be the main reason to make the proceedings slow.
Characters are all well known. The voice lenders are also equally suitable for the tone of the generated images. Jamie bell manages as the Tintin. Andy serkis makes a turn over to lend voice for humans rather than creatures. He looked suitable. Daniel Craig was not the right choice for Saccharine.
The best part of tintin is the visual effects and lot of generated CGI images. Accompanying those are the smooth and racy tunes composed by John Williams. Technically everything was right for the motion picture. Spielberg tried to bring back the tintin fame to strike chord in fans and also the normal viewers. People who spent their bucks will be satisfied for the visual fun they had for about 100 minutes and also evenly disgusted for an intricate plot. The box office will ring the bells and collect as much as it can. But with coming of age animation movies tintin is slightly outdated in terms of narration and failed to make its mark in giving a good storyline. For normal viewers it can be said that silly idiotic clever fun. For me it is not quite over the top but manages to become the best in describing how normally a visual movie fails to deliver in terms of content. It is made for just visual appeal. Yes Tintin will sparkle light for next few years. But the next treasure adventure should not sink below the sea level.
