The Adventures of Tintin (2011), Steven Spielberg’s first foray into motion capture filmmaking, turns the legendary boy journalist and globe-trotting adventurer from the early graphic novels of Herge into a big screen hero, complete with trademark cowlick and best friend canine Snowy watching his back.
Spielberg and his collaborators (notably co-producer Peter Jackson) chose to split the difference between cartoon simplicity and photorealism to create a world where hand-drawn characters become the models for 3D recreations and the possibilities of comic strip storytelling inspire his creative choices. Coming from the man who made the original Indiana Jones movies into such rollercoaster entertainment, perhaps I expected more muscular storytelling here. Spielberg doesn’t have the deftness of Pixar’s best filmmakers, but he does have a good time letting his creativity play in the new technology, and he has the good sense to cast Andy Serkis as Captain Haddock in support of boy hero Tintin (performed and voiced by Jamie Bell).
Daniel Craig takes villain duties and buddies and frequent costars Nick Frost and Simon Pegg play the twins Thompson and Thompson. The screenplay is by Sherlock cocreator Steven Moffat with Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead) and Joe Cornish (Attack the Block).
It’s supposed to be the first of a series of films. Peter Jackson still insists that he will direct the follow-up film but the sequels are still in development as of this writing.
The film earned an Oscar nomination for the John Williams score.
Rated PG
On Blu-ray and DVD and on SVOD through Amazon Video
The Adventures of Tintin [Blu-ray]
The Adventures of Tintin [DVD]
The Adventures of Tintin [Blu-ray 3D]
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The DVD has no supplements but the Blu-ray is filled with short featurettes on the production, characters, design, and technology of the film, which can be accessed individually or watched straight through as a 97-minute documentary.
