GOOD DETECTIVE WORK

This week sees the release in the UK of The Adventures of Tintin, Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson's first adaptation of Herge's comic work. This is a film that has been in the planning stages for a number of years but even Herge, when he was alive, apparently thought Spielberg would be the perfect choice to bring his boy reporter and dog Snowy to the big screen. Tintin was created using motion capture technology, a technique that has led to the films made with it previously populated with characters with dead, creepy eyes. I am glad to say that Weta digital have avoided this pitfall here, creating characters who are warm and alive on screen. The 3D is used intelligently and because it's a light film, it also means that the action is easy to follow unlike many other 3D productions in live action that have been released this year (step forward Pirates of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides). The Adventures of Tintin manages to distill the fun and the heart of Herge's illustrated work, harking back to the most fun elements of Spielberg's Indiana Jones films and synthesising a genuinely entertaining adventure story. This film takes three of Herge's adventures (Secret of The Unicorn, Red Rackham's Treasure and The Crab With The Golden Claws) and conflates them into a single story. So Tintin has to find the clues to piece together a mystery that brings together Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis), the evil Sakharine (voiced by Bond himself Daniel Craig) and a replica of a galleon, the Unicorn, that holds the key to the whole affair. Bumbling police officers The Thompson Twins are played by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost here. Adventures of Tintin is a very enjoyable pulp adventure movie, made by two of the best practitioners in the business and the script, by Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish strikes just the right balance to keep kids amused while offering enough for adults to stay interested. Ironically the film feels like a very British affair, perhaps thanks to the actors and the screenwriters. This film deserves to be a huge worldwide hit and hopefully through Spielberg and Jackson having their names on this, this will charm American audiences the way it has done in the UK. Steven Spielberg still has the magic touch…