Film: The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn

A Belgian classic for a new generation.


There aren’t many people who won’t have heard of Tintin. Even if you haven’t read the comics or seen the TV show, the name normally holds some weight. The Belgian comics depict a young journalist who usually gets swept up in adventures while looking for a story and this film follows the familiar pattern. Tintin buys a model ship and instantly attracts the attention of dangerous men, leading to him discovering the secret mentioned in the title. With his faithful dog Snowy and new best friend Captain Haddock Tintin intends to get the bottom of this mystery and stop the bad guys along the way. You can tell a lot of heart went into the making of this film. Steven Spielberg (director) is a self-professed Tintin lover as is Peter Jackson (producer), and it’s obvious from how perfectly they capture his world. Through motion capture CGI they have managed to bring Tintin to life incredibly vividly while still sticking to the ideals of the original comic.

  Tintin (Jamie Bell) is a bit of a blank slate in the film, as he was written to be, a sort of neutral figure that audiences can identify with. However, this leaves it up to the supporting cast to provide much of the excitement, a fairly risky move. Luckily Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis) does this role wonderfully clumsy drunken fool besides Tintin’s straight man while also providing a counterpoint in times of high optimism – and seriously is there anything involving motion capture that Serkis hasn’t been a part of! And Snowy is tough, brave and way too intelligent; with some lovely animation work done on his expressions.

  Some of the other characters don’t quite measure up however. For instance Thomson and Thompson as the bumbling policemen are very hit and miss in their humour, with it unfortunately missing a great deal of the time. While the villain of the story played by Daniel Craig is suitably terrifying for much of the film he isn’t given much to do and his reasons behind hunting the heroes are a little ridiculous.

  The film really shows how far motion capture has come since ‘The Polar Express’ with the characters showing genuine emotion and thankfully that dead-eyed effect is no longer present. The CGI also shines in the films set pieces, like the chase sequence through an African town and the 17^th century set flashbacks. You really feel the film is set in the real world.

  Overall I thought it was a great film, perfectly capturing the world of Tintin and setting up future sequels.