The Adventures of Tintin

The Adventures of Tintin, rightly, reminded me immensely of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Of course, Raiders owed a tremendous debt to Herge’s comic strip so it only makes perfect sense that they possess a similar tone and propulsive narrative that never stops for a moment. It was possibly the most fun I had during a movie throughout all of 2011.

The story, like it really matters, relies upon a loose but intriguing mystery surrounding family secrets and random artifacts. But the plot in a film like this doesn’t matter much, and it knows to play second fiddle to the action, spectacle and gee-whiz sense of fun and adventure.

Leave it to director Steven Spielberg and producer Peter Jackson to pull in a pedigree cast for a motion-capture animated film. Jamie Bell is utter perfection as the titular hero, a potent combination of grown-up adventurer and little-boy precociousness. He’s also smart, inquisitive and appears to lack that nagging voice in the back of your head that says, “This is a bad idea.” Daniel Craig delivers a deliciously droll and malicious performance as the heavy, while Nick Frost and Simon Pegg turn up and do a befuddled and scatterbrained cop-buddy duo. But the best performance, which is no turn surprise since he is the Lon Chaney of this type of filmmaking, belongs to Andy Serkis as the perma-drunk Haddock.

And since this is animation, by and large, Spielberg’s imagination has been allowed to explode into set pieces that are ridiculous, awe-inspiring, wildly entertaining, and sometimes all of these things at once. Although, the final battle between Haddock and Craig’s Rackham using cranes as swords leaps directly into over-the-top hysterics. Sure, it’s entertaining, but unlike the section which sees our main characters trying to pilot a crashing plane through a storm and into a desert, it doesn’t have any weight.

It’s the child-like innocence and sense of fun, something missing greatly from today’s film-making, that truly inspires awe. Sure, Spielberg has made a career out of making very grand and proficient entertainments, but when someone gets this far into a career no one really expects them to live up to their glory days. We just expect something solid, and hopefully good. The Adventures of Tintin echoes the days of Raiders and Jaws.