Tintin’s trademark is his terrific tuft, and let me tell you, Spielberg made sure to get the hair just right in his telling of “The Adventures of Tintin.” And so there it is — bouncy, reddish in color and perfectly undisturbed as Tintin and company set out on the trail of a hidden treasure, lost for centuries.
Opening on a marketplace where Tintin, voiced by Jamie Bell, is having a street artist draw a portrait of him, the film has a star studded voice cast and a visual style that makes it seem more like Herge’s Tintin comics than the originals themselves. Thomson and Thompson, the two bumbling detectives, voiced by Nick Frost and Simon Pegg respectively, are spot on as they ineptly try to apprehend a pickpocket that has stolen each of their wallets multiple times.
As the plot moves forward, Tintin purchases a model of the 17th century man-o-war Unicorn from a vendor, which initiates a treasure hunt across multiple continents when he discovers a clue inside the mast.
Spielberg’s Tintin interpretation is a mash up of two of the original Herge comics, “Crab With the Golden Claws,” in which Captain Haddock (voiced by Andy Serkis) is introduced, and “Secret of the Unicorn,” which introduces Haddock’s ancestral home, Marlinspike Hall.
The film is a beautiful homage to the Herge creation from both an artistic and a comedic standpoint, and its grasp of Tintin villains is also impressive. In “The Secret of the Unicorn” comic book for instance, the movie’s main villain, Ivanovich Sakharine, voiced by Daniel Craig, is a minor character who I’ve always thought seemed sinister. He always looked way more evil than the Bird Brothers, and more like a traditional Tintin antagonist.
But my complaint about the film is that it’s too over the top, action wise, even for Tintin. Having a tank driving around with a building on top of it, for example, or Haddock and Sakharine sword fighting with cargo loading cranes seems unnecessary.
For those who know little of Tintin, this film will be a hit, but for fans the film is a mixed blessing. While the feel of the movie, the voice acting and the art are fantastic, the film often seems over the top and the storyline a little too tangled between the plots of “Secret of the Unicorn” and “Crab With the Golden Claws.”
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