Such a disappointment...

Rating: 6/10 (22 December 2011)

When I was a child, my favourite book series was the adventures of tintin and as I grew older, my love for the books also started to grow. So when I heard about the film announcement back in 2009 you could imagine my reaction. However as the release date for the film grew ever closer and new news was being released about it like the mo-cap format, I was slowly becoming more and more disinterested. Until last weekend when I was actually dreading going to my local cinema to watch it. I'd heard mixed reviews about it from friends and family. But never the less I went into the film with an open mind. About 2 hours later I came out with a literal headache, views of the film were spinning round my head, so I thought I'd tell you my review of tintin: the secret of the unicorn.
For me this film was hard to watch for a variety of reasons. Reason number 1- Their wasn't 5 minutes in this film that didn't go without action, it was just ridiculous, half the action in the film never even happens in the book. My problem is that with kids films these days, they have way too much action and too many silly scenes, its like the directors of these films think that children are so uneducated that they can't even follow a simple storyline. This is all too true in Tintin, I may be exaggerating a tad , but I would go as far as saying it was quite insulting to the intelligences of kids around the UK. Children CAN follow simple stories and they don't need big explosions every minute to keep them stimulated.
Reason 2- Back in 2010 I saw an interview with Steven Spielberg, their he was asked ' is the film true to the books' and he replied yes. It isn't. The whole focus point for Tintin and the thing that makes it great is the sense of adventure in the story. However in the film they hardly stick to the story of the book, so they pretty much devised their own story. This for me just made the film feel like any other cartoon film, because the classic story wasn't their to make it stick all together. For example the secret of the unicorn is part one of two books however at the end of the film they do all of part 1 then just skip the whole of the 2nd book. Although, it wasn't just the story that frustrated me it was also the characters. In the books Tintin is an innocent young reporter who cares about others that's why I was annoyed to find out that in the film he's quite angry and trigger happy! Also his friend captain haddock is made out to be a maniac to literally can't behave properly without alcohol whereas in the books he's civilised and lovable.
Reason 3- My 3rd and final reason is that I had the unfortunate experience of seeing this film in 3-D. Yet again the 3-d in this film was completely unnecessary, their wasn't one moment which was made for 3-D. Yet again I found myself enjoying the 3-D adverts more than the 3-D film and yet again found myself watching the majority of the film without the glasses. 3-D is just a gimmick for all these big 'movie' studios to rake in as much money as possible and frankly conning movie goers! Films shouldn't be in 3-D unless they were made for it!
As you most likely know Herge said if anyone was to make a film of tintin he wasn't want Spielberg to do it. Frankly for me he didn't do the job. That is why I think that it will be very interesting in a few years when the 2nd film is released with peter Jackson instead directing.