A sinful trip down nostalgia lane

Rating: 10/10 (24 December 2011)

Tintin- a trip down nostalgia lane. My first tryst with the Belgian icon was in 1981- when my father first read out The Crab with the Golden Claws in a bid to get me to go to school. I picked up snippets at first, and made him read it to me again and again and again...net result- lifetime fan.
Herge considered Spielberg as the only one who could do justice to his comics on the big screen, and with peter Jackson too in the scheme of things, how right he was. The movie mixes two of the best stories- The Crab with the Golden Claws and The Secret of the Unicorn to come up with 120 mins of uninhibited thrill, energy and globe trotting 3D fun.
Tintin is the very pinnacle of motion capture with the attention to details being fantastic- the expressions are so so so very real, the look of the characters is spot on as if they just jumped out of the comic book in your drawer, the opening sequence that pays homage to all of Tintin adventures is perhaps the best ever opening sequence, when Tintin and friends give chase to an ultra competitive falcon tearing down a whole city in the sidelines, we get the best ever chase sequence, and when Haddock battles Red Rackham on the open seas, we get the best ever sea battle sequence!
I was mesmerized most of the movie, occasionally screaming silly now and then...In short, Barney would say that the overall CGI levels are legen...wait for it....dary! Snowy antics make him the crowd favorite easily, but since we touched upon Haddock- well, he simply rocked. Andy Serkis is a superstar at motion capture (think Gollum, King Kong) and here he steals every scene as the grumpy but endearing, booze crazy Archibald Haddock...hell, so towering is he that they should have called this movie the Adventures of Captain Haddock!
The most enjoyable movie of the year so far, will satisfy old fans, and create new ones. Can Spielberg+Jackson please get the next installment out soon? Am game for another watch anytime- 10/10