OK, well...Mmmm, but don't take children under the age of 10 to see it

Rating: 7/10 (26 October 2011)

Lets start with the bad parts....
Straight off - let me say that the rating of "U" is wrong. It should be "PG" at least. Example; A man is shot dead in the doorway of Tintin's apartment and there is blood all over a newspaper. Call me old-fashioned - but this is most definitely not what I want my 8 year old to see. He didn't particularly want to see it either. There are a lot of machine guns, shooting and male posturing. There is not one female character, not a single one, that could have softened this film.
I was disappointed too, with the portrayal of Captain Haddock - who is shown as a shocking messed up old drunkard. I grew up in the 1960's with the cartoon version of this and the books and I don't remember him having such an issue with drink. In the film Haddocks' drink problem is shown more than it needs to be, and it crosses over the boundary into the glorification and humourisation of alcohol. Having lost a brother to drink I didn't find it humorous in the least, and as such I didn't want my son to see it either.
So,why the 7/10 rating? Well - it looks GREAT! Really clever innovative imagery. Worth seeing just for that alone. The story is pretty good and age appropriate for children. The action is fairly relentless and the film captures a lot of what was good about the original French books and cartoons. Every good story covers a lot of ground and "Adventures of Tintin" certainly does that. There is a lot of the Indiana Jones movies reprised in this film, and I liked it for that too.
Overall - this is typical Spielberg, actually - not particularly good Spielberg. It doesn't need the alcohol and the shooting, it did need a female character of some sort. It's OK OK, well...Mmmm, but don't take children under the age of 10 to see it.