Hamburgers

Rating: 5/10 (15 March 2012)

I don't know if it's just me, but in all fairness, I found Tintin to be like a big, greasy burger from McDonalds. Sure it has the power to tempt you with its big lettuce and cheese and tomatoes and it's juicy patty... But even despite the yumminess of the burger, it's a dull experience overall as you've devoured nothing of actual substance.
I'll admit, for the first thirty minutes of Tintin, I was hooked. I hadn't read a single comic book, watched a single cartoon or even encounter a piece of literature that bore the name "Tintin" as a child, so this was all new experience to me. Unfortunately, the fun only lasted for thirty minutes. About two hours later, I left the cinema not only feeling dazed from all the 3D effects and always moving camera shots, but also wondering why they even bothered to try to make CG animated film out of something that clearly looked as if it wasn't meant to be a film.
Don't get me wrong guys. I don't mean any disrespect to Stevie S, as he is a fantastic filmmaker and has made dozens of fantastic films throughout his career. But frankly, Tintin was just... Boring.
I think the biggest problem lies in its protagonist. Tintin is a very empty character and almost a Gary Stu. Everything seems to go exactly as planned for him and he seems to have no weaknesses or defaults. I'll remind you yet again that I didn't know anything about Tintin before going in, so I'm not sure if I missed the point of anything but really... He was just a dull character, and not interesting enough to warrant an entire movie based around him.
It really is a shame because Haddock, his partner was a fun and quirky character, and kept me watching. And the spine tingling chillingness of Daniel Craig's Saccharine was just mesmerizing, gorgeous to watch even and how he played the evil character nicely. So... Couldn't the movie's own damned protagonist do anything to show he's worthy of a movie?
I also don't know of this is just me, but I could tell the writers were trying to force too many eggs into one basket. I have no idea what stories this takes inspiration from but I just feel like this was just a bunch of stories mashed together with no cohesion.
However, at least it looked pretty. At least it gave me something to look at when I wasn't trying to wrap my head around the not very interesting story, or how many of those there were. Alas, this is a film I could see myself putting on at parties as a background type thing, you know? But if I were to try and sit through the film again, I'd have a headache from it all. So I guess my review should be a 3/10... But it did look pretty, so I'll give it a 5. For one it could have been a lot worse.
Hey, for one, we could have gotten another "Immortals" with this one. At least we didn't. At least.