The Adventures of Tintin
Happy New Year, I hope 2012 is a great one for us all!
I’m really just a kid at heart so New Year’s Eve for me can’t get much better than a 3D animation.
So it was that I saw The Adventures of Tintin. (Not to be confused with the Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, which is a whole other show.) This is yet another Steven Spielberg directed film—does this guy ever sleep?
Tintin has got to be the best animation of all time and one truly forgets that it’s not real actors playing the parts.
The voice of Tintin is Jamie Bell, Captain Haddock is Andy Serkis, The Thompson twins (bumbling Interpol Agents) are voiced by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost and the villain Red Rackham is Daniel Craig.
In this adventure, the intrepid journalist Tintin is on the trail of the secret of the unicorn, the sunken ship captained by a Haddock ancestor and no end of trouble befalls him and the drunken Haddock descendant who has been under the influence most of his life, but has potential if only someone would believe in him—and Tintin does.
Once again, a seemingly children’s movie has been made for an audience that won’t understand the nuances and will be shown (in animation form), shootings, fighting and endless attacking by various weapons of the dangerous variety. Having said that, the kids in the theatre were well behaved and quiet, so maybe they were really entertained by the action, and there was lots of action for Tintin and his dog Snowy.
Tintin was written by Georges Remi (1907-1983), who wrote under the pen name of Herge. In his day, he was as well known and popular in Europe as Walt Disney was in the U.S.
There are several scary scenes—the plane going into the storm which will likely put the fear of flying into all who see it. In fact, this scene is a lot like my own recent flight back to Kelowna from Vancouver, a flight so choppy that I nearly kissed the ground when we landed.
There are indeed enough scenes to keep adults interested in The Adventures of Tintin—from the sea battles, to finding treasure, it is a show indeed for the child in us all. Tintin is a magical action adventure that offers both entertainment and fun.
There are a couple of best lines: “My mind is not what it used to be.” “What did it used to be?” “I’ve forgotten” and…
“Police work isn’t all glamorous and guns, there’s a lot of filing.”
I enjoyed this and it gets three and a half reels.
I also saw Mission Impossible, Ghost Protocol which was a great action pic, but then I am a big fan of Tom Cruise, so I’m a bit prejudiced. It’s an action packed adventure of the Mission Impossible genre that started as a TV series and has lasted much longer than one would have thought.
My favourite movies of 2011 are: 50/50, Bridesmaids, The Help, J. Edgar, War Horse and Super 8.
There’s lots more to see in 2012—join me at the movies.
Susan Steen is a local non-profit executive and a movie buff.
susansteen1234@shaw.ca
