The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn

As a child growing up in a small town with nothing much for kids to do I used to spend a lot of time reading and my two literary mainstays were the books of Asterisk and Tintin. In fact I was such an avid reader of the books that my local library had to order them in specifically for me! But despite my love of the books I never wanted a cinematic version of either characters adventures - after all, as with many childhood icons, revisiting them as an adult always seems to disappoint... So I approached this film version of Tintin with a sense of trepidation, even more so given that the film was created using motion capture technology, a technology that has disappointed many cinema-goers, myself included.

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn takes story elements from three of Herge's classic Tintin books and skillfully combines them into a new cohesive whole thanks to the work of scriptwriters Stephen Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish. The film depicts Tintin's (Bell) first encounter with Captain Haddock (Serkis) and their discovery of the clues to the treasure of his ancestor Sir Francis Haddock, taking the escape from the Karaboudjan and the subsequent trek across the desert from The Crab with the Golden Claws; the treasure hunt, the gang of criminals and three identical models of Sir Francis Haddock's ship, the Unicorn, from
The Secret of the Unicorn; and the estate of Marlinspike Hall and its hidden treasure in the basement from Red Rackham's Treasure.

Whilst their work on combining the three tales is admirable there are some problems with the finished script, including a story that is completely driven saying rather than doing - by that I mean there are many scenes where Tintin explains everything that he's going to do before doing it. There's no room for the audience to think along with the characters - fair enough the film is aimed a children, but I doubt any but the very smallest of children would need the story so thoroughly spoon-fed to them.

And the script isn't the only problem. But more on that momentarily...

Where The Adventures of Tintin succeeds in is it's adaptation of the original source material. Despite taking elements from three books, I would say that this is the nearest thing to a perfect book-to-screen adaptation I've ever seen. And yes, that includes the many, many adaptations of classical literature that Hollywood have churned out over the years. It is also the best mo-cap animated film I've seen, with plenty of human characteristics in the CG animated cast and a complete lack of "dead-eye" that has plagued all the other motion-captured characters in the movies that have been released previously.

Speaking of characters, despite headlining the film Tintin is in fact the most boring character in the cast, which is no fault of Spielberg and co. as Herge wrote his hero so clean-cut and straight-laced. There is a distinct lack of edge to the character - he'll always play fair and won't fight dirty, unlike Spielberg's other adventuring hero, and Tintin's closest contemporary, Indiana Jones. Captain Haddock however is a lot more fun, thanks in part (well thanks completely) to his alcoholic tendencies which both give him an edge and make him a focus of the films funniest moments. But the real star? That would be Snowy the dog of course! Spielberg and co. have perfectly captured (pardon the pun) Tintin's sidekick and like all good cinematic dogs Snowy is the most "human" of them all.

Whilst The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn has plenty of pluses (non more than it looks amazing), it also has one rather large minus: it's just not exciting. Yes there's plenty of action - much more than ever appeared in the original books and there are some stunning set pieces, including a tremendous flashback to the epic battle between Red Rackham and Sir Francis Haddock that is one of the best swashbuckling scenes I've laid eyes on since the heady days of Douglas Fairbanks and Errol Flynn. But when all's said and done, the film is sadly a very workman-like adaptation of Herge's tale, lacking the spark and childlike wonder one would associate with a film from Steven Spielberg.

Yes The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn is good, in fact very good... but its just not great. Which is not what I expected of a film from the team of director Steven Spielberg and producer Peter Jackson. The film opens across the UK on October 26th.