Decent animation, bad Tintin movie

Rating: 7/10 (14 November 2011)

Short review: As a regular animation, this is a decent one. Fluid motion, beautiful visual, fabulous action scenes, you got it on. As a Tintin movie, this is a bad one and I hate it.
Granted, the opening says "based on the story", so technically it's not a theatrical adaptation, just "based on". For all Tintin readers out there (I don't dare to say "fans" as I do not claim myself a fan, but I read Tintin throughout my childhood), the movie will not relive your memory in its glory.
The story do not follow closely with the original The Secret of the Unicorn. Instead, it uses the core idea of 3 leather scrolls and Red Rackham's treasure hunting, mixes up some elements from The Crab with the Golden Claws and Land of Black Gold, glorifies a minor supporting character into the main villain and thus completely change the essence of the story. I, as a purist, do not like mixed smoothies, thank you.
Visually the movie is stunning. I quite like the beautiful color palette. Life-like rendition of the characters and fluid animation more or less take off the minimalism flavour from the comics, but I can bear with that. After all, it gives the movie a fresh look.
The movie features some fabulous action scenes, as expected from any animation and as expected from Steven Spielberg. However, as I feel the essence of Tintin's adventures is more about wits and the story as a whole, having Tintin and Captain Haddock flying across Bagghar on a motorbike chasing a hawk is out of place. Lots of people will enjoy these fast-pacing and humorously breath-taking chase scenes though.
The rest of the complaint lies on Jamie Bell's terrible voice acting as Tintin which sounds flat and emotionless, the plain jokes that I find it hard to crack a smile, the unlikeness of Tintin as a whole (his facial expression is weird). But then again, what more can I ask?
As said earlier, this is not a terrible animation and I'm sure many will enjoy it. However, if you just want to watch this because of the original comics, you can skip it. Nothing will be missed. Or if you've watched it, like me, you'll have to find and read the original comics again, to purify yourself from the movies.
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