The Adventures of Tintin

Rating: 8/10 (5 August 2012)

In the very first scene, Tintin is having a street artist paint a portrait of him. When it is finally unveiled, it looks exactly like the way Tintin looks in the old comics and the animated series. It is a very funny gag, but it is a dangerous one, because to me, it is difficult to outdo the old movies, for nostalgic reasons, if nothing else. The joke might also symbolize that The Adventures of Tintin is deeply rooted in the old adventure tradition, even if it looks new.
That being said, the film feels unmistakenly modern, for better or worse. There's really not a boring moment, with frantic, gravity-defying action from start to finish, but sometimes I almost wished that it were more steadily paced and drew from other aspects of Tintin as well.
All in all, it is a very fun film. The clumsy Thomson and Thompson are hilarious. The alcoholic Captain Haddock is almost too unlikable, though. Visually speaking, the animation is quite terrific, with stunning images of exotic locations, it has lots of good visual gags, like when a guy falls outside a pet shop and canary birds are circling around his head, and the transitions are innovative, like when Haddock's hand smoothly turns into the North African desert. The ending suggested that there will be a sequel, and if Spielberg et al. are able to refine Tintin's transition into the 2000s, I am very much looking forward to it.