Great fun and adventure

Rating: 8/10 (26 December 2011)

I went into "Tintin" knowing virtually nothing about the original Hergé novels other than they were very well-regarded.
Anyway, lacking any bias one way another as a Tintin purist coming into the movie I was primarily interested in entertainment value and it's more than fair to say "The Adventures of Tintin" packs a whole lot of entertainment into its lean frame. There's only an infinitesimal amount of room for non- action in this wall-to-wall action-adventure. You don't get much slack to breathe in this romp through a plot that carries you around Europe and North Africa.
Tintin is the perspicacious reporter always on the prowl for a great story. There's no waiting for him to find one. This one turns around a model of a clipper ship called The Unicorn that he finds randomly in an outdoor market. Immediately multiple people descend on him to either attempt to buy it from him or warn him about it. And so begins the bramble of a plot that brings in the sodden Captain Haddock - wonderfully voiced and acted by Andy Serkis - to companion and accelerate Tintin's adventure. In fact, Haddock becomes a crucial component of his story.
There's a lot of fun to be had in "Tintin," a good deal of humor - some great, some not-so-great - and a heap of mind-swerving visual play. It's a bit dizzying at times, but too irresistible to warrant real criticism. From raucous runs through North African towns to flashbacks to a pirate battle that easily rivals any from "Pirates of the Caribbean" series.
"Tintin" has more than its share of disbelief suspension but that has a natural tendency to happen in a film that is 100% CGI-driven where sometimes animators do things just because they can. Some visual tricks come completely out of nowhere. Not so much bizarre but just kind of out of place - like multiple buildings that move down the hill of that North African town. I didn't get where they fit into the pretty wild action and what the point was. Maybe when I watch it again I will.
That said - the animation is unique and first-rate. Being an homage to Hergé, the character model are quite different and fit what a Tintin purist probably expects; e.g., Captain Haddock's head is unusually large in proportion to his body.
I didn't find issues common with motion capture animation to be much in evidence; i.e., primarily the creepy "dead eye" (aka "Uncanny Valley") that had largely killed motion capture animation for me and pretty much everyone (e.g., "Polar Express" and virtually anything done by the Robert Zemeckis'/Disney's now-defunct Imagemovers Digital). Though some have taken umbrage with this and think the glassy-eyes and waxy skins are still there, I was actually struck by the realism of the animation, primarily of Tintin himself - though clearly Haddock and the "Thomson Twins" are intentionally cartoonish. Somehow it all works though.
Overall "Tintin" is tremendously entertaining, a great adventure and plot that keeps your pulse racing. Tintin, his trusty dog Snowy, and Haddock are fun and engaging characters you want to spend time with and lose yourself in their world. Easily worth seeing.