The Adventures of Tin Tin Movie Review

Movie Review

Uniting elements from Hergé volumes The Crab With The Golden Claws, The Secret Of The Unicorn and Red Rackham’s Treasure, valiant Belgian reporter Tintin (Jamie Bell), along with brainy mutt Snowy, is on the trail of a lost family fortune, and a future best friend, rambunctious soak Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis).  But with dastardly villain, Ivanovich Sakhraine (Daniel Craig) hot on their tails, they’ll have to work fast to find the clues and grab the treasure.

I was never a fan of the original Tin Tin books but they have a devote fan base throughout the world, it was a stroke of genius for creator Hergé to say that Spielberg was the only filmmaker that could adequately bring his vision to the screen.  Here he has made a beautifully rendered film which is so visually arresting that you forget that it is an animated film.  Gone are the dead eyes of ‘The Polar Express’ and ‘Mars Needs Moms’ because these are the most stunningly realised CGI characters i have ever seen.

During the first 30 minutes of the flick I was wondering why they made the film an animation instead of live action but once the action kicks in the movie could have only been done this way, as the set pieces are the craziest things I’ve seen in years.  One of which sees a chase through a Moroccan city which is all in one shot, never cutting away to another bit of footage to fill in the gaps, it is pure escapist Spielberg firing on all cylinders.

That’s not to say the film doesn’t have issues, with the slow pace being a major sticking point for me as 20 minutes could have easily been trimmed.  While the two main characters are fully realised, the villain and supporting characters are just there to propel the story and aren’t given much.  The screenplay, written by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz), Joe Cornish (Attack the Block) and Steven Moffat (Sherlock, Doctor Who), is a love letter to all things Tin Tin and fans of the books will have a field day picking all the subtle nods to the source material but it left me a little cold and didn’t feel like a movie should, rather like a few stories put together which in fact it is.

The cast are good with the two main protagonists being amazing, Jamie Bell injects the title character with the right amount of feistiness and bravado while Andy Serkis is a revelation as Haddock and he clearly steals the film.  Daniel Craig is a typical villain but hasn’t much to do while Nick Frost and Simon Pegg are the comic relief as the Thompson Twins but sadly their involvement in the film seems like an afterthought.

Originally envisioned as the trilogy of films with Spielberg directing the first one, Peter Jackson doing the second and them teaming up for the third but Paramount had other ideas and balked at the budgets and sheepishly decided to make one and see what happens.  Thankfully it is more a rollicking rollercoaster ride than a drape sub-par adventure flick so hopefully we’ll be seeing more of these unlikely thrill seeking buddies in the future.

This is thrill ride of a film and although it’s a little long and takes a while to get going, by the end you’ll be waiting with anticipation for the sequel.

‘The Adventures of Tin Tin’ is out in cinemas now.