One of the staples of my childhood, I was unbelievably excited to see this movie and even happier that it was Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson who were spearheading the project to screen. With these two guys running the show, I thought, there was no way they could screw anything up- and lo and behold, I was entirely correct. This movie is a solid gold home run.
The story of the adventurous young journalist Tintin (Jamie Bell) and his faithful canine companion Snowy, who stumble onto a chase for buried treasure after he buys a model ship and people start chasing him, ransacking his apartment, attempting to steal it from him, etc. Soon enough, he finds himself smack dab in the middle of an adventure beyond his wildest imagination- as his adventures find him kidnapped, escaping from a ship, crashing a seaplane into the desert and being helped along the way by Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis) and the Bumbling Detectives Thompson and Thomson (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost) as they race to find the treasure before the evil Sakharine (Daniel Craig) does. Along the way they discover the true secret of the Unicorn (the sunken ship) and the pirate Red Rackham's (also voiced by Craig) treasure-- leaving the way open for what I'm really hoping are not just one but two equally awesome sequels!
Overall, Speilberg managed to combine elements from three of the original Tintin books (The Crab With Golden Claws, The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham's Treasure) and made them into one helluva movie that remained very true to the original, adventurous spirit of the original while compromising none of the intelligence and wit of Herge's original text. He also managed to resist the urge to modernize or sex up Tintin- no iPhones, no computers, just Europe and good old fashioned adventure and John Williams provides the old school, retro score to match it all up perfectly.
What struck me the most was how hard it must have been to figure out how to sell this movie to kids that don't remember the cartoons (from Nickolodeon of my youth- very awesome) or have ever heard of the books, let alone read them. This isn't a movie that lends itself well to action figures and Happy Meal toys and in the hands of the wrong director it could have been disastrous- but the fact that they hewed so close to the original source material makes this a hard movie to define. Is it for kids? Yes. But is it a traditional kids movie? I would say no- the adventure is something that will appeal to audiences of all ages.
If there was one tiny criticism I could level at Tintin, it would be that it did take a little while to get going- but then again, presumably, it's being designed as the first of a trilogy, so establishing characters and things of that nature does take time and well, plot- but once this movie got going, it took off- and in the best way possible.
Overall: **** out of **** Once it revs it's engines, this movie flies! Perfect!
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