From a Tintin fan who had been waiting for this film the whole year: Kind of disappointing, and below my expectations...

Rating: 6/10 (11 November 2011)

I'll be honest here, I'm a big fan of Tintin, having read all of the comic books, and this was one film I was looking forward to the whole year. But sadly, it was kind of a letdown.
Supposedly based on "The Crab with the Golden Claws", "The Secret of the Unicorn" and "Red Rackham's Treasure", the film follows none of the story lines and instead creates a new story with a brand new villain, Ivanovich Sakharine, who wasn't really a villain in the original "The Secrets of the Unicorn". Minor deviations from the main plot can be overlooked, but seriously... this?
...And the story continues, mixing the settings and scenes from all the three comics, mainly during the action sequences. This new plot seemed very much forced and lacking the natural flow of the actual story. For those who've read the books, the base story used here is from "The Secrets of the Unicorn" in settings from "The Crab with the Golden Claws", with the ending from "Red Rackham's Treasure". There was too much random shooting and blasting (in short, action), and too less stealth and humor for a Tintin story in the film. Was this staying faithful to Herge's Tintin? I'd say no.
Now, as for the character representations, I felt Tintin's role was given justice, while Haddock's definitely wasn't. Haddock is famous for his antics and his language use, and that wasn't quite captured well at all. He even gave serious advice at one point! Sure, some of his actions invoked laughter, but I expected much more! Occasional humor was also provided by Thomson and Thompson, and I enjoyed them thoroughly. Sakharine excelled as a villain as well. However Allan, though in the actual story was quite a character himself, was reduced to a mere order following thug in the film. Bianca Castafiore, who wasn't there in "The Crab with the Golden Claws", made an appearance in the film, but Professor Calculus, who made his first appearance and was an integral part of "Red Rackham's Treasure", wasn't in the film!
Though the story hardly followed "Red Rackham's Treasure" at any time, the ending did. Any sequel of this film would have to completely divert from the original story as well, because in the comic, Tintin and Haddock found the treasure after a failed search in the ocean, while in the film, they found the treasure first and then found directions for more.
In short, I'm unhappy because the story of the film didn't follow the actual story, which could've been excused had the story of the film been an entirely new one with a good plot (such as in, say, "Sherlock Holmes"), but it wasn't, and it used parts from the original stories to create a very linear but nevertheless jumbled-up plot, which didn't appeal to me much.
Well, that's enough of looking at the negatives, there are a lot of positive aspects to the film as well. For a start, the animation (using motion capture technology) and visual effects were mind blowing, spellbinding, and very awe-freaking-some, and this is probably the best visual treat of this year. Attention to detail was amazing, and it was often easy to forget that I was watching an animated film. The soundtrack was very fitting and blended with the atmosphere very nicely.
I saw some people criticizing the film because it didn't give any introduction to Tintin, and that he's too lackluster as a character and all that, but I'd like to give the film credit for portraying Tintin's character like that, because he essentially was in the comic books as well. Tintin is a reporter and gets into trouble wherever he goes, and that's all we need to know to enjoy the stories.
Overall, this film could be fun for Tintin first timers, but for a veteran like me, it wasn't. It failed to give me any nostalgic feelings, but on the other hand, the stunning animation and special effects partly managed to counter those deficits. I wouldn't discourage anyone from viewing it, but I wouldn't encourage it either.