When it comes to this movie, I need to just come clean and say that in my eyes, Steven Spielberg can do very little wrong. Before a certain movie with the refridgerator, a nuclear bomb, and dead psychic aliens from dimention X, I had never seen a Speilberg movie I hated. But if that wasn't enough, we also get Peter Jackson's name attached to this movie! Ok so he was just a producer, but still! What kind of adventure would you get from the guys that did Lord of the Rings and Indiana Jones? A really kick ass one! And that's what we have here.
For those not familiar with the Tintin comic strip, I don't blame you. Tintin was a Belgian comic strip written by Georges Rimi (aka Herge) that was first published back in 1929. It's about a young reporter named Tintin and his trusty terrier, Snowy.
Herge himself came under quite a bit of scrutiny since much of his early work was political in nature. And one doesn't need to do much math when you add political commentary, Belgium, and 1939.
Our movie was actually adapted from Herge's eleventh book featuring Tintin called "The Secret of the Unicorn." And that is where our movie starts. Tintin is in the park getting a character drawing of himself by one of the local artists. I felt this was a great wink to the audience. We see the comic drawing of Tintin before we ever see the modernized Tintin we see through the rest of the movie.
Tintin then finds a model ship called the Unicorn and is infinately fascinated by it. A Man-O-War with six masts and fifty guns. As soon as he buys it two different men try to buy the ship from him. Being the detective/journalist that he is, he instantly knows there's more to this ship than just a beautiful model. This leads him on a great adventure with Captain Haddock to discover the secret of the Unicorn.
The overall acting of the movie was wonderful but again Andy Serkis proves why he just might be the best voice actor of our generation. After having such roles as Kong in the King Kong remake, Smeagol/Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, he brings his talents to this movie as Captain Haddock. Captain Haddock wastes no time stealing the show. He's such a likeable and funny character. The only other character I loved more than Haddock was Snowy the dog.
The music was just awesome. Again, a staple of Spielberg's directing; heavy orchestrial scores to enhance the action scenes. And there are a lot of action scenes. The movie wastes no time getting to the conflicts. This does hurt the characterization of Tintin but really that is in keeping with the comic strip. Tintin is meant to be a wholesome everyman type of character. Whatever you want him to be, he is. He's far more defined by the courage he shows in solving the mystery.
It's a great movie but unfortunately with movies like this I can't say too much about it without spoiling the surprise. So, I'll leave my review by saying that it's a great movie and I totally recommend it.
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