The Adventures Of Tintin (2011, PG)

The Adventures Of Tintin is a computer animated feature film about a young early 20th century newspaper reporter who goes on adventures.  The character - English in the film, Belgian in the original print material - is from European comic albums by a Belgian under the nom de plume Hergé and that were later made into cartoon adventures (short-ish).  This particular adventure involves Tintin, his faithful dog Snowy and sea captain Haddock trying to beat the bad guy to find the mystery behind a 17th century lost ship and some non-lost models of it.  Tintin is not Batman in terms of brilliance or fighting prowess, but he is brave, competent and willing to get in there and get the job done.  I'd been told that this movie was good, but I enjoyed it even more than I thought I would.

First and foremost I have to say that the animation in this movie was gorgeous.  The textures were great (particularly Tintin's sweater, also at one point Tintin held a paper pamphlet that I could have sworn was in my own hand).  The faces were a great midway between animation and realism that is visually pleasing, expressive and not creepy.

  The one exception was a woman singer from later in the film whose face looked mostly too-realistic with an absurdly prosthetic-looking nose (imagine a live action film about Rold Dahl characters).  The mouths moved perfectly for the dialogue and emotional expression, and the subtle movements of the flesh around the eyes really impressed me.  The second thing that blew me away in the first minute of the film were the voices of the cast: wonderful sounding for the parts even before I knew that they were actors I adore.  Tintin was voiced by Jaime Bell (Billy Elliot), Sakharine by my favorite 007 Daniel Craig (Casino Royale, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo [second version of each film]), Captain Haddock by motion-capture master Andy Serkis (King Kong [title character], Lord Of The Rings [Gollum], Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes [Caesar]), and Interpol agents Thompson and Thomson by the dynamic duo of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (Hot Fuzz, Shawn Of The Dead, and the Spaced tv series).  They all did wonderful jobs and with the exception of Craig, I could hardly recognize their voices.  The characters were engaging and (when good-guys) likable.

Though I loved the visual and verbal aspects (sound and direction of the voices; the dialogue itself was competent but not the shining point) pacing of this film was was makes it a movie to blow you away.  It kept a near-constant tension, broken up occasionally by a more humorous side thread so you do get to catch your breath.  Stephen Spielberg has been the big name in directors for most of my life, but in recent years he has fallen off the radar a little bit... but here he came back and reminded me why he's such a master.  Among the screenwriters for this film are Edgar Wright (the Pegg/Frost films mentioned above) and Stephen Moffat (Doctor Who, Sherlock, Coupling).  I found myself thoroughly enjoying almost every minute of the film, which is more than most good movies can claim.  It has the fast pace of a serialized pulp, and I think that's the feel they were going for.  This movie walks the fine line of kid-friendly but not too kid-friendly, and I think it was all the better for it: it has guns, swords and blunt objects but no blood; Tintin uses a gun and his fists but doesn't kill anyone; it has no sexuality (hardly any female characters at all now that I think of it, but no anti-feminist sentiments otherwise).  If you liked Indiana Jones (particularly Raiders Of The Lost Ark and The Last Crusade) or Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow, then you should love this movie.  For me it's 4.5 stars.