The adventures of our boyhood hero

Rating: 8/10 (14 January 2012)

To do any justice to Herge's Tintin, its cinematic adaptation would have to be animated. But when you have two legendary film-makers who revel in fantastic adventures, a simple animated version would be quite banal by their standards. Enter Peter Jackson's WETA, which excels in performance capture animation, having created several LOTR characters and the Apes that took over our world recently. For Tintin's loyal fans worldwide (barring the non- existent ones in USA), the film had to create magic and capture the essence of Herge's adroitly written mysteries. Anything less would be blasphemy. With Steven Spielberg at the helm, our young journalist-detective is brought to life on the big screen in an inconceivable form that is both revolutionary and awe-inspiring. The lines between reality and animation have seldom been so blurry. Screenwriters Steven Moffat ('Doctor Who', 'Sherlock'), Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish, draw inspiration from 3 of Herge's popular books to create a fun- filled adventure.
Upon procuring a model of a ship named 'The Unicorn', Tintin (voiced-Jamie Bell) soon discovers its historic legend of a secret cargo and its fateful end under the captaincy of Sir Francis Haddock. As he advances on his quest, guided by a hidden scroll in the model, Tintin ends up on the Karaboujan, where he encounters Captain Haddock (voiced – Andy Serkis), who is rarely sober and always on the edge. Aboard the ship, Sakharine (voiced -Daniel Craig), who had the other scroll, is in command of his gang that aids him in his pursuit of the Unicorn's secret. Tintin, Haddock and Snowy manage to escape, only to crash land into the Moroccan desert, a little ways from their destination, the port of Bagghar. This is where the final piece of the puzzle rests within the Sheikh's well protected model of the Unicorn. Now, it will take Sakharine's beguiling abilities, the acrobatic, relentless and witty efforts of Tintin, Snowy and Captain Haddock to retrieve this last clue to The Unicorn's Secret. But there is something more that Sakharine wants out of this quest....
The film is based on 3 books of Tintin's adventures: The Secret of the Unicorn, Red Rackham's Treasure and The Crab with the Golden claws. Even though the thrill of such an adventurous story could not be as engaging as the books or the TV series, Spielberg and Jackson must be credited for achieving such technological breakthroughs and relating it all to Tintin's spirit of unravelling great mysteries. The essence of Herge's books is still present and that is what Tintin fans worldwide, will certainly acknowledge. Spielberg and the WETA team make Herge's storyboard almost come to life. Screen transitions occur in bubbles and reflections but Snowy, who may not have a thought cloud, is expressive enough to be taken for a real white terrier. Apart from this aide of Tintin's, a testament to the film's technical achievement is notably in two sequences. Captain Haddock relives the story of his ancestor's encounter with the pirate Red Rackham by enacting it all. We are smoothly and unknowingly transitioned through the two periods as Francis Haddock and Red Rackham engage in a stunningly choreographed duel. The other, is an inconceivable sequence in Bagghar's streets when Tintin, Haddock, Snowy and Sakharine's forces chase his falcon to retrieve the scrolls it obtained from the Sheikh's model ship. Sakharine in a car chase, Tintin on a motorbike pursuit, Snowy's acrobatic chase, Haddock's balancing act alongside Tintin and a sliding hotel building, all filmed as a single, breath-taking shot.
At the end of it all, after marvelling at Spielberg and Weta's spectacular performance- capture animation technique that brought the boyhood hero Tintin on the big screen, one will be in equal awe of their ability to recreate the magic of Herge's works from familiar characters to iconic scenes and grippy story-telling. Thomson & Thompson are still the good natured imbeciles and there's the opera singer Bianca Castafiore whom Haddock simply cannot stand. Snowy is still the smartest dog around and our young reporter-detective escapes near death while unravelling a mystery, only to lead up to the next one. All of it, just as we read in Herge's books and watched it on the TV series. North America may be oblivious to Tintin's legend but the rest will have a blast at the most adventurous escapade led by Jackson and Captain Spielberg.
8.77 on a scale of 1-10.