Herge would have been proud

Rating: Null/10 (30 October 2011)

First off I have been reading Tintin over and over since I was 6; I am a huge fan to the point where I can mostly name the book from one picture. Since hearing that Steven Spielberg was making a film of the books I was concerned that he would not remain faithful to the original books and the level of detail and storytelling would get lost in the bid to make a one off blockbuster.
I went with my 9 year old son, who is also a fan of the books, to see the film this afternoon, and I was blown away.
The book is based on "The Secret of the Unicorn"; however as all the characters need to be introduced Mr Spielberg needed a mechanism for doing that and so decided to weave "The Crab with the Golden Claws" into the story line, which seemed a little odd from my perspective but my son was bowled over, it was a bit clumsy at times but it did work.
Mr Spielberg doesn't remain 100% faithful to the story line however there are large parts of the film lifted straight from the book, but the need to fit the story into a film that kids will sit through and the sheer amount of the story that needs telling he does a very good job, that said there are subtle nods to the original characters of the book, I won't go into too much detail in case you haven't seen the film, but for those who are fans of the books will smile when they see them. The story is an epic, reminding me of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in the telling and running along at a rate of knots meaning if you blink you will miss something.
The quality of filming, 3D and sound have all been discussed to death here already so I won't go into detail other than it's all top notch. All in all much better that I thought it would be and well worth a couple hours of your time, and if it gets you to read the books, you will discover a great set of stories. I hope Mr Spielberg follows through with other stories in the series, my favourite being "Red Sea Sharks".