Las aventuras de Tintín - El secreto del Unicornio

What begins as a fun, nimble little mystery in the first act soon kicks into comedy-action-adventure high gear when junior reporter Tintin, with his brave dog Snowy, stumbles upon boozy Captain Haddock (an excellent Andy Serkis), whose family legacy may prove pivotal in a race to uncover the secret of the Unicorn.

From that point on, it's more or less non-stop comedy—some fizzles, most of it works—with gags ranging from jaw-dropping blockbuster chase antics to throwaway background humour. Captain Haddock works brilliantly for the most part: he's unpredictable, endearing, and colourful in all the ways Tintin himself isn't. While the youngster is well played by Jamie Bell, he's mostly just there to work out the clues for the audience. Tintin and Haddock make for a good double-act, though: brains and brawn, cunning and in-over-his-head rashness; together they'd make a good Indiana Jones.

The plot is a by the numbers mystery/adventure/treasure hunt, complete with bumbling detectives (so-so comic support from Simon Pegg and Nick Frost), exciting sea plane action and hidden clues, but it's brought to life in gorgeous visual style. While the script only comes alive in fits and starts, the whole film is bursting with rich detail, and is given added depth by a good, solid use of 3D. The virtual camera-work throughout is stupendous.

One extended chase sequence through the flooding streets of a North African city is so dazzling and dizzying it reminded me why no other filmmaker can match Spielberg when he lets his imagination out for a spin. Another action scene, told in flashback, depicts a breathless pirate showdown in a storm, and features some of the most playful transitions I've seen since Ang Lee's Hulk. There's a pretty good villain, too, played by a wily Daniel Craig.

Snowy, while definitely smarter than your average cute canine, is also given to chasing cats, digging up fossilised bones from the desert, and gobbling sandwiches at decidedly inopportune moments. In other words, he's an instant audience favourite.

All in all, it's a rollicking good adventure, one of Spielberg's most fun movies in a long time, and I'll be buying it on Blu-ray next year.

And Steven Spielberg has found that ship and that ship has sailed him to a brand new technology for filmmaking. Yes, I'm talking about motion capture or as Spielberg calls it "perfomance" capture. This technology is a like a new toy for Steven. You can feel the joy for filmmaking from every shot, every detail. He plays with the camera in a way he never could while making a live-action film. For example in probably the best scene of the film the main character, Tintin is gliding on a wire and the camera is following him throughout the whole scene in a continuous shot. But you can still say, you still see that this is a Spielberg movie. You know this is a Spielberg movie since the opening title credits that will remind you a lot of the opening credits in Catch Me If You Can. Even the music is very similar.

The main character is Tintin, who is a journalist who we never see doing any journalism though, but that doesn't matter because he is the textbook example of a heroic boy with boy scout qualities. The voice of Jamie Bell fits perfectly for the character. Andy Serkis gives here an incredible performance as Captain Haddock, the drunken sailor who to me was often reminiscent of a grumpy Harrison Ford. The story did seem as too much centered on Captain Haddock though, you could even say this should have been called "The Adventures of Captain Haddock" instead of Tintin. Daniel Craig is unrecognizable as the main villain Sacharine. Although his voice did jump to his normal voice in one line but otherwise you didn't know it was him. Of course I can't forget to mention the lovable dog, Snowy. He steals almost every scene that he is in. He is very realistic, he acts like a real dog and even gets his own chase scene. I'm telling you will adore this dog.

The animation is magnificent, the motion capture has gone a long way since The Polar Express. It looks very realistic, especially all the features on Captain Haddock's face. The beard, the wrinkles and the eyes, they all looked amazing. Especially the eyes, they aren't so dead-eyed anymore as in The Polar Express.

The action scenes are brilliantly written and directed, the angles of the camera, the drive of the action scenes, timing of all the jokes(physical or visual) is genius. Because Spielberg is a genius. He is the master of adventure movies and there never will be another genius in adventure movies like him.

Overall Spielberg has created an old-fashioned style adventure movie for the whole family to enjoy,where the important things are just the hunt for the treasure, the friendship two people can make and the most important thing of all that it is an entertaining ride. Spielberg never disappoints, it doesn't matter if you are a fan of Tintin or not, you will enjoy this film nonetheless

I went to see this film in a free screening and took my nephew and niece with me, seeing as it was a family film to try and get different reactions to the film.

Let me start off with my view of the film, I've been a fan of Tintin since I first saw the cartoon back in the early 90's, though never read the comics. When I saw the credits of who wrote, produced and directed the film, you think to yourself this film is going to be awesome, there is no way with all that talent they can't possible f**k this up (and they didn't). You have Spielberg directing, Peter Jackson as a producer. Also the writing team great with Steven Moffat, known for Sherlock, Dr who, Coupling and another of my child hood favs, Press Gang. Finally you have Edgar Wright, who wrote and directed Shawn of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

The version of the film i saw was 3d, as it was a preview and i didn't have a choice. Normally i watch all my showing in 2d as i think its personally a fad and a rip off and the films i have seen excluding Avatar, i didn't think the 3d aspect improved the film going enjoyment one bit. This again is my option while the 3d is nice, and the shots going through glass and water was really good, there was nothing else that would have me pulling out another £2 a ticket. I would have been happy with a basic 2d version.

On to the film story, TinTin (voice by Billy Elliott's Jamie Bell) buys a handmade ship in market. As soon as he buys it he gets a number of offers of people willing to buy it from him, which TinTtn rejects. When he gets home Snowy, Tintin dog, breaks the ship and a hidden clue rolls out, which begins Tintin trying to work out what it means. Tintin then gets kidnapped by the evil Ivanovich Sakharine (Daniel Craig), who is after the clue. This where Tintin mets up with Captain Haddock as they set of trying to work out the meaning of Tintin clue.

The film is a really mixture of action and adventure. We see the heroes on board ships, rowing boats, fly airplanes, riding camels, having car\bike chases and crane fights. The time flew past for me and not once did i feel bored, this was probably down to the amount going with the film, the quick pace of the action and the different locations of the characters were always in. It reminded me of the Indiana Jones films a lot, where he is on the hunt for treasure, and he only has half of the clues, and the bad guys have the others half and both sides are trying to get the other half for the themselves. He then needs to go around the globe via different transportation to get the info he needs to find the treasure.

There is also a large amount of humour in the film, seeing as Moffat, who wrote coupling helped write it, this is no big surprise. While i got the jokes neither my nephew (3) nor niece (8) did. So I am assuming that these were aim at the adults watching.

The characters the film makers can't chance much from the original Hergé comics, but Tintin I did find too goody goody, the captain is great character, who is drunk loser, but has a kind heart and wants to do the right thing. The bad guy, Sakharine, is perfect, scary enough to make you believe that he is ruthless killer who is a greedy and after revenge, but on the other had not going over board to make the kids feel scared or afraid of him when he was on screen. There is also the two comic relief characters of inspector Thomson, who are on screen just enough to make you smile at the pratfalls and their stupidness, but not too long for the jokes to wear thin so you're sick of seeing them.

My rating of the film would be 4 out of 5.

On to the kids view of the film. 1st my nephew who is 3 years old (4 in November). He told me he liked the film a lot especially the pirate bits, but he didn't understand why the pirates were bad. He also said he liked the motorcycle chase because the bikes were cool. As i was sitting next to him i could tell the film was slightly too long for him as he started to fidgit a bit in the last 15 mins.

My niece who is 8 (9 in December), i didn't get a lot of information from her, when i asked if she liked all her answer was yes it was good, and when i asked what her favourite bit was, she told me all of it.

As a reference for taking children during the half term break, i would say 4 and under while enjoy the film like my nephew did, but they won't fully understand the plot of the film or why certain things are happening, but for 5 years old and up this film and adults included this is a must see.

As you may know Tin Tin is a very old character and there has been books and TV programs made about his great adventures by his inventor Hergé. This new film has been voted the best animated film and once you've seen this film you'll know why. The film is well paced out and there's never a dull moment in this film. The 3D in this film is spectacular and it's well worth seeing this film in 3D if you can. The film is around 1 hour 47 minutes long and in this time Steven Spielberg manages to squash in a good few adventures into one in this film. This makes it much more exciting and you really get to know how Tin Tin and Captain Haddock were in the old days. As a projectionist, I've seen this film about 6 times now and I still don't get bored watching it. Absolutely brilliant film, I really recommend going to see this film as soon as you can. Hope the review helps your thoughts on the film. Thanks for reading, I'll be making more reviews on the films that I see at my cinema so you can get the latest thoughts from me on the films. Thanks again BPH projectionist

Billions of blue blistering barnacles, Ten thousand thundering typhoons – for a whole generation these were the epitome of cuss words thanks to Captain Haddock. I am one of those in late 20s who grew up reading ( mugging to be precise as Thomson & Thompson would have said) Tintin and almost worship Herge for the genius intelligent stories created in the black and white times of our grandpas. Being an hardcore Tintin loyalist the excitement to see the boy sleuth of screen was certainly brewing high. But the movie left me wanting more. It left a mixed reaction in me and here I come one by one at different levels.

Story Level – Hollywood have adapted many novels for big screen and most of the times it has failed to recreate the finesse of the original work. Spielberg's rendition of Tintin somehow managed a mixed reaction in terms of story. Firstly selecting "The Crab with the Golden Claws" make sense as that shows the boy sleuth meeting the gold hearted Captain Haddock for the first time and in the first encounter Tintin comes face to face with the perennial drinking habit of Captain. "The crab with the golden claws" had enough spice for a full fledged film but may be Spielberg wanted some adventure which prompted him to juggle with "The secret of the unicorn" and "the crab with the golden claws" thus making a concatenation of two stories. Personally I felt that the two stories have been woven wisely with liberty taken in creating an ancestral fight between Captain Francis Haddock and Pirate Red Rackham. Somehow the cocktail was well crafted with the story oscillating between two original books. But the second half was outright outlandish as Spielberg merges his own imagination in creating a full fledged action film which took away the essence of Tintin. The subtlety, intelligence were missing as the director chose to make a 80s Bollywoodish action climax which had no connection to the original one. Moreover the movie ended in the way the comic book "Red Rackham's Treasure" ends yet Spielberg hinted a sequel which is related to Red Rackham's treasure. That shows the sequel will be a total new story by Spielberg (or Peter Jackson) with touches of original. It will be strictly for those who have no idea of what actual Tintin is all about. I mean Spilberg could have named it anything Tom Dick and Harry if not Tintin specially for the second half.

Character Level – Spielberg is almost perfect in designing the characters. The look and the way the screen Tintin reacts brings in nostalgia of childhood days when we imagined (and discussed amongst friends) how Tintin would have behaved if made on screen. The attire to expression was all nicely done. Same goes for Snowy, the cute loyal dog of Tintin who can fight with the goons to save his beloved master. In fact children will fall in love with Snowy after watching this film. In one of the scene when Tintin gets kidnapped Snowy follows the car of the goons to the ship were Tintin was deported. The scene indeed brings out the pathos and concern inside Snowy for his master. Coming to Captain Haddock the characterization isn't as perfect as the comic book. The laziness and craziness in the first half were apt but then Captain fighting in the second half is too hard to digest. The detective duo Thompson and Thomson is appropriate and so is famous nightingale singer Bianca Castaphiore. But Spielberg should have included the verbal fights between Castaphiore and Haddock though he hinted Haddock and Snowy's disgust for Castaphiore's opera. Coming to the villains I am not convinced of Sachcharin as the main villain. The original had Bird Brothers as the villain duo which was more convincing than the screen one. In fact if they wanted to include a dreaded notorious villain then Rastapopulous (the evergreen big nosed enemy of Tintin) would have been the right choice. Even malicious Captain Allan has been relegated to side kick of Sachcharin. Captain Francis Haddock and Red Rackham's characters were true to the original book and it worked well.

Technical Level :- Frankly speaking the 3D effects were disappointing though the animation was top notch. The shadows and the structures created the by gone era with utmost precision. The fight sequence between Captain Francis Haddock and Red Rackham was one of the best sequences in the film. With brilliant camera-work and fine editing the scenes looked captivating on screen. Thought the fight sequences in the climax were loud for Tintin purist but at technical level those are a treat to watch and would be lapped by those who don't have a clue of "actual" Tintin. Dialogues were plain pedestrian and thanks to morality lectures by Captain it becomes ridiculous as a Tintin loyalist to sit through in the second half. As a director Spielberg has lost his midas touch long back which is echoed by this film again.

As a whole Adventure of Tintin started of brilliantly but lost its true sense with faulty narrative towards later half. Tintin loyalists would feel cheated but then they would still watch it for Nostalgia. Non-Tintin fans would lap it for the action. But believe me the Belgian reporter who resides in the heart of millions deserve a better on-screen representation thus doing justice to original masterpiece created by genius Herge. Whatever may be the fate of Spielberg's Tintin please go and read the original comic series. Each is brilliant in it's own way..On-screen or off-screen Tintin and Snowy rocks!! Tintin the film 6/10..Tintin the comic book 11/10