Billions of Blistering Blue Barnacles!
When Steven Spielberg’s action-adventure classic
“Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark,” opened in France way back in
1981, plenty of the reviews kept on repeating an obscure word, Tintin. Curious
as to what the French word meant, Spielberg asked for a translator to find out.
It turns out the French critics were consistently comparing Indiana Jones with
a long cherished French series of comic books by Herge named “The Adventures of
Tintin.” Indiana and Tintin had plenty in common. They were both intrepid
adventurers (Indiana an archeologist and Tintin a journalist) whose exploits
brought them to exotic locales in search of mysterious artifacts or ancient
treasure. Both stories employed a break neck pace of action adventure and
situational humor, not to mention some classic colorful characters met along the
way. So it is no wonder that
Spielberg (with much help from Peter Jackson) would be the perfect choice to
adapt Tintin into a movie and apparently has been working on this one off and on for more than twenty five years. As one who has read almost every single Tintin comic
book (they are great!) I can say that this movie could not have been done
better. It is Tintin and everything that was great about it. I hope they make
many sequels. If you were one of those that were disappointed by the last
Indiana Jones movie, than you must go and see this one. It is exactly what you
want from that type of movie.
The plotline of this movie takes elements from
several great Tintin books, most noticeably “The Crab with the Golden Claws,”
“Red Rackham’s Treasure,” and especially “The Secret of the Unicorn.” Tintin
notices a model ship of the pirate Red Rackham’s 17th century
galleon at a flea market and pays a pound for it. Almost immediately other
interested parties ask to buy the ship from him. They give him dire warnings.
Tintin takes the boat home with his journalistic curiosity fired up. He does
research on Red Rackham at the library and comes home to find his apartment
ransacked. There is something about that boat that people want! Could it hold
the secret to Red Rackham’s lost treasure! What follows is a series of holdups,
secret messages, code-breaking, marvelous coincidences that lead to strange far
off adventures, espionage, intrigue, and the like. Tintin (voiced by Jamie Bell) is accompanied by his
faithful dog Snowy. Along the way he meets an alcoholic skipper named Archibald Haddock who has a tendency for swearing
colorful phrases like “Billions of Blistering Blue Barnacles!” and happens to be one of the two last descendants of an age old feud between two pirates, Captain Haddock and Red Rackham. Captain Haddock
is played by Andy Serkis, the best motion capture actor in the business (he
also did Gollum, King Kong, and the Ape in “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”). The last descendant of Red
Rackham is played by Daniel Craig. There are also plenty of thugs with guns that like to capture and kidnap Tintin and to be outwitted by an escaping Tintin. We are also treated to two bumbling police officers named Thomson and
Thompson. They are identical twins that wear the same black suits and bowler
hats so try not to get them mixed up. They are voiced by the comedic duo of
Nick Frost and Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz), an inspired choice of
casting if there ever was one.
The Adventures of Tintin employs the best use of
animated motion capture that I have ever seen. This is a particular type of
animation that was pioneered by Peter Jackson for the character of Gollum in
LOTR and made into entire movies by Robert Zemeckis. It is a poor substitute
for live action in that the humans never quite escape the uncanny valley (this was one of my main dislikes with a movie such as Beowulf), but since Tintin
is a comic strip, the characters make more sense inhabiting the uncanny valley
than they would in the real live action world. The Tintin drawings themselves were
rather simplistic. To search for an actor that looked exactly like Tintin would
have resulted in finding a pretty weird looking actor. It is better this way.
Not to mention the control that animation gives the
makers in constructing some ridiculously intricate action sequences. Take a
look at the climatic chase scene that starts at a palatial villa and goes all
the way down to the Oceanside through winding streetscapes while a tidal wave of water from the local dam gushes down right behind them. It is shown almost
entirely in one shot without any edits or changes in camera angles. This is something that would be impossible to shoot
in live action, but since it is animation we get to view a ridiculously
intricate sequence that never cheats or confuses. The planning that must have
gone into it was obviously extensive and the result is very good. Of course a
movie that is live action like “Mission Impossible” will always be more
effective thrills wise (you won’t get vertigo watching an animated film) but
that doesn’t mean animation can’t be exciting or fun and Tintin is all of that.
The Adventures of Tintin should be a lock for the
Oscar for Best Animated Picture. This should be the first time in many years that Pixar (Cars 2) does not come home with the trophy.
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