The Adventures of Tintin (2011)

Director: Steven Spielberg
Screenplay: Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish (based on the books by Hergé)  
Cast: Jamie Bell, Daniel Craig, Andy Serkis
Music: John Williams
Time: 107 minutes
Bottom-line: Thumbs-up!

Tintin, the world-famous comic-strip character, comes to the big screen, and surprise: it is a Steven Spielberg film! In 2011, Spielberg decides to direct a 3D animated film about Tintin. The voices for the characters are given by Jamie Bell and Andy Serkis for Tintin and Captain Haddock respectively. The film is based on three Tintin books written by Hergé. Personally, I am a big fan of Tintin. That, along with assured great direction from Spielberg, makes this film a superb one.

Tintin 

Tintin (Bell), a young reporter, and his dog Snowy are surfing through some artifacts in a market, and Tintin decides to buy a miniature model of a ship called The Unicorn. Immediately, two more gentlemen, Barnaby and Ivan Sakharine (Craig) are willing to buy the ship from him, each offering a fortune for it. Yet, Tintin ignores their offers and keeps the ship. Tintin finds a piece of parchment inside the model, but is unable to make out what is written on it. Things get weirder when Tintin’s model gets stolen, and he notices an exact model of the ship in Sakharine’s house. Soon, Sakharine kidnaps Tintin and keeps him hostage in his ship, where Tintin meets Captain Haddock (Serkis) - the actual captain - who is permanently drunk and has no idea of what is going on the ship. As the story goes on, Tintin realizes that the models of The Unicorn actually contain clues leading to a treasure, which was hidden by Haddock’s ancestor. Whether or not he is able to find the treasure using the clues forms the rest of the film.

Captain Haddock

The story is a confluence of three Tintin books: The Crab with the Golden Claws, The Secret of the Unicorn, and Red Rackham’s Treasure, but the film mainly draws ideas from the first two. Though the main story is from Hergé’s works, the film is also in many ways similar to Raiders of the Lost Ark, another famous Spielberg film. In both films, there are clues leading to a treasure, there are two parties searching for the same treasure, the hero gets captured and he escapes, there are exotic locations and few other similarities as well.

Detectives Thomson and Thompson, with Tintin

Though the film does not have the subtle humour one finds in the comic strips, the film has several funny dialogues and other comic scenes, mainly caused by Snowy and the Captain, with the usual contributions from Thomson and Thompson. The story moves at a rapid pace, the writers of the screenplay have done very well to combine three books into one single story. John Williams' continues to amaze with his awesome score, for which he also received an Oscar nomination.

The film has several interesting sequences. The scene where Tintin and the Captain escape from Sakharine’s ship; the scenes that Haddock narrates about his ancestor; the sword fight between Haddock’s ancestor and another pirate, Red Rackham; the chase through the town, when Tintin tries to get back the scroll from Sakharine’s bird are few of the really well-created scenes in the film. Moreover, the 3D effect also adds to the excitement and thrill of the action sequences. The animation is excellent, and the characters are very real indeed. Their facial expressions are almost like that of real actors and not like that of animated characters.

Last but not the least: Snowy

To conclude, Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin is a splendid film that boasts in storytelling and in animation. Some thrilling action scenes, funny dialogues and incidents and brilliant animation make this film a thorough entertainer. It is not an overstatement to say that this film might be the best one that has been made on Tintin, yet.


My Rating: 4/5
Rotten Tomatoes rating: 75%