MOVIE REVIEW: THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN (2011)

I recently saw the Tintin movie and I have two opinions about it.

1st, the animation is wonderful. Just amazing. The characters and the scenery are very life-like, and in close-up shots of the characters you can see the hair on their head move. I loved it.

2nd, I’ll admit that I know nothing about the Tintin cartoons or books. But I was very surprised by how ‘adult’ this movie seemed. I can easily see the plot going over the kids’ heads. This is strange to me because right now, this movie is being marketed as a children’s movie.

This movie will exhaust you with its large amount of fast, action-packed scenes. Once the movie begins there is no down time, and I was relieved once the end credits started rolling. It felt like I took a huge gasp of breath at the beginning and couldn’t truly exhale until the end.

The sad part about movies that are packed with action scenes is the character development suffers. It’s hard to know what a character is thinking or feeling when they’re flying through the air and avoiding impending death and doom. All of the characters came across as stereotypical, one-dimensional people. You have the good guy- Tintin. Trusty companion- Snowy. Comic relief – The Thompson twin detectives. Evil bad guy- Sakharine. Bumbling fool who becomes useful as the movie goes along – Haddock.

This is what really disappointed me about Tintin: there was no affection or compassion shown between Tintin and the other characters (not even his dog Snowy). At some points I felt Tintin was pushy, overly dramatic, and even a little ruthless as he hunted down the secret of the Unicorn, a sunken ship that held a vast amount of gold and jewelry.

I can’t give much credit to Steven Speilberg, who directed the movie. I don’t think he clearly defined his target audience and the movie suffered greatly from this. I have no idea who to recommend this movie to, but it’s so empty and dull that I don’t think anyone should see it.

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