The Adventures of Tintin in 3D Movie Review
Kind of boring as a film, but kind of interesting as a case study in schizophrenic movie making.
I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. Any family get together where the assorted factions amoung my cousins don’t melt down like Chernobyl is a winner in my book. Plus my mom got me complete Star Trek TOS season 2, so count me happy.
Anyway, Tintin. I am in general a Spielberg fan. In fact, I just gave his filmography a look and, except for the first two Transformers movies I love pretty much everything he has ever done. This is not even a case of having done something long ago and riding that into the ground. He recently worked on Real Steel, Super 8, True Grit, and Falling Skies, all of which I have enjoyed immensely. Also, Tintin is based on a comic, which is usually win in my book. So, why then didn’t I love this movie?
Well, to be brutally honest, Tintin the character is kind of boring and two dimensional. I enjoyed Snowy the dog a lot more, and I hate animal characters. Tintin looks like young Howdy Doody got his wish and was transformed into a real little boy. The problem is he is then thrust against gritty, harsh, realistic guys and the disparity is jarring. His motivation to do anything at all is highly questionable. He shows no real emotion and I felt no real connection with his character, which more or less robbed the film of any tension when faced with a life threatening situation. I felt a better connection with Captain Haddock, and felt my pulse quicken a bit when he was involved in an epic sword duel with the baddy. Fortunately, just before my eyes were in serious danger of opening all the way Tintin swung in on a rope and robbed the situation of all tension, allowing me to return to my previously torpid state.
The other problem I had with this movie was I couldn’t figure out who this movie was made for. It seemed at first for kids. Swashbuckling adventure with a young boy and his dog, some really goofy comic relief characters, simplistic story, and no motivation whatsoever says children all over. They really went out of their way in the first half to maintain that PG rating. A guy gets riddled with bullets and is only injured. Another guy falls off a moving ship and gets caught up in some rigging. Bullets miss easy targets in a manner that would embarrass the A-Team producers. Then, all of a sudden we are faced with the brutal and horrific execution of a ships crew (tossed overboard into shark infested water) and the death of the first villain (run through with a sword and left to drown on a sinking ship). It was like they spliced two minutes of the Human Centipede into Winnie the Pooh. Also, the running joke throughout the movie was about a probably terminal case of alcoholism that Captain Haddock was suffering from. The previously child-simple story takes a turn for the extremely complicated. I still can’t decide who that movie was made for, and honestly that is a bad sign.
I can say one thing about who this movie is for, and that is clearly males. There is literally one female character in the entire film, and that is Tintins landlady who has about three lines total. Other than that it’s a total sausage fest. I’m not looking for eye candy in what may or may not be a children’s film (or, for that matter, a cartoon), but it seems foolish to not include any single character for 50% of the potential viewing audience to identify with. I actually find myself in a weird place on this point. On the one hand I despise movies that force characters into existing stories in order to broaden the appeal. On the other hand I really felt this movie would have benefited from a little more estrogen on screen. Take that for what you will.
Anyway, the movie. Tintin is a famous boy reporter who buys a model ship of the famous Deus Ex Machina, I mean the Unicorn. Some other characters offer him large sums of money for it, but he refuses based on his love of this model ship (I guess. His apartment shows no sign of any interest in anything model related, ship or otherwise. I guess he imprinted it (Twilight joke there, fans) Otherwise there is no reason shown that he wouldn’t have flogged it for a serious profit). Turns out there is 1/3 of a secret message from an old ship captain about a lost treasure. Tintin gets his ship stolen but has the message. He gets kidnapped by some merchant marines and then the adventure begins! He meets up with the chronically comedically drunk Captain Haddock (seriously, this guy puts away enough booze to kill my Irish grandfather) and they escape the ship in a life boat. The adventure follows a pretty standard Indiana Jones plot from there, if Indiana was an annoying kid and was also channeling Benjamin Franklin Gates from National Treasure. Repressed memories surface that in fact have nothing to do with actual finding of the treasure, only pad out the screen time. Stuff gets blown up. Tintin and Haddock engage in things that should have had them in jail for life. The story drives through the some gaping plot holes to arrive at a pretty pat ending.
I normally don’t do the stars/black holes things for kids movies, but the ambiguity behind the intended audience on this is allowing me some leeway on it. Stars first. Comic book movie. One star. The animation was really good. Overall really impressive visually. One star. Excellent motion capture, mainly by the great Andy Serkis (Ceaser from Planet of the Apes and Gollum from the Lord of the Rings). One star. A few exciting and/or humorous moments. One star. Snowy the dog was cool. One star. Total: four stars.
The black holes. Tintin as a character failed to interest me in the slightest. I couldn’t have cared if he if he fell off a cliff. One black hole. The pacing dragged at times like a front wheel drive car missing it’s rear axle. One black hole. The whole kids/adult movie question. One black hole. Failure to provide me the slightest hint of why Tintin was doing anything. One black hole. The story was so full of deus ex machina it was brushing it’s teeth with the stuff. One black hole. The ending included a less than subtle pitch for the inevitable sequel. One black hole. No female characters of any kind in a film that really felt the need. One black hole. Ultimately, a film that was sold as really exciting and fun that was actually pretty boring. One black hole. Total: eight black holes.
A grand total of four black holes. Pretty mediocre. I know, this movie has done amazing things in Europe and all my European friends will probably yell at me for it, but let’s face the fact: Europeans are weird (Normal People Worry Me image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category). 
Tintin has been hugely successful as a comic book in Europe for years and never even approached the surface here in the US. Worth seeing? Not really. Not kiddy enough for your kids and not adult enough for an adult. Maybe if you are European or have a deep appreciation of bad European entertainment. On the other hand, this could actually work for the right girl as a date movie. She may well be impressed that you like something so Euro and pretend to like it herself in spite of being bored to tears. This may translate into her pretending to like you in spite of being bored to tears in an attempt to look like she has traveled farther than Bakersfield in her life. It’s worth a shot. Be sure to talk about all the subtle nuance on the screen and use the line “Americans always have a hard time appreciating the European aesthetic” at least once after the movie.
That’s it. There is a ton of new stuff out this week, so look for a new review tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Thanks for reading. Talk to you soon.
Dave
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Jo April 4, 2012 at 4:45 pm
Nice review. Movie was incredibly boring, although the stop motion animation was interesting. I’m European (although I now live in the U.S.) and I’ve never read the comic books, but I loved the animated series Tintin as a child. It was funny, creepy and in some cases, terrifying (the Seven Crystal Balls, for instance). The movie really does not capture any of that magic. I watched the first half of the movie and gave up. I liked Jamie Bell in a couple of other movies, but his Tintin is wooden, to say the least. Considering the great cast, and how rich and colourful the original source material is, this should have been a lot better. I also couldn’t decide who they were making the movie for – it was childish in the extreme, which the original is not. I was looking forward to this, and was horribly disappointed. It lacked all the fun and charm I remember the original having. I think the reason it did so well in Europe is because a lot of people grew up watching the television series, and would have seen the movie without reading any reviews. The script was awful… just awful. I’m really sad that this is how most Americans have been introduced to Tintin.
Dave April 4, 2012 at 5:06 pm
Thanks Jo. I also felt there was a lot of potential I wasn’t experiencing. Thanks for reading. Comments like that help me fantasize that I am on the right track with some of my reviews.
Dave