Movie Review: The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn

Just the other day, newspapers reported that Sony has green-lit a sequel to Steven Spielberg’s Tintin movie, to be directed by Peter Jackson; producer of the first movie. This because of the massive worldwide success of this, the first American Tintin adventure. And what’s remarkable is that the movie still hasn’t opened in the United States! On December 21, it’s finally time for Americans to discover the Belgian hero whose adventures Europeans have loved for over 80 years (read my article on the history of Tintin HERE).

I’ve been very skeptic to this new Tintin movie -- and I sure had my reasons. First of all, it’s directed by Steven Spielberg, which feels a little odd. He’s an American, and even if he’s admired the adventures of Tintin for 30 years, he’s active in a country where basically nobody has any relation at all to Hergé’s character, and where pop culture is of a different tradition -- maybe not content wise, but American adventure comics rarely look like French-Belgian ones. I’ve no idea what New Zealander Peter Jackson’s relation to Tintin is.

When I saw the first images from the movies, I got really worried -- not to mention when the first trailer was released. Spielberg’s movie is computer animated, using motion capture technology, and the characters looked pale and dead.

On the other hand: Hergé admired Spielberg and his first first movies, and the great comics artist expressed a wish that Spielberg would adapt Tintin for the big screen. Unfortunately, Hergé passed away before he and the director were to meet in March of 1983.

When the first reviews of this new movies started popping up after a special screening to the French press, most of the reviews were very positive -- some of the critics were lyrical. And if the French give the movie two thumbs up, it can’t be all wrong (I’ve no idea what the Belgian critics thought, though). Then I finally got to see the movie myself -- and I was very positively surprised. This is good!

Let’s begin with the negative aspects of the movie. A couple of colleagues remarked that the animation is so photo-realistic they just as well could’ve made a “real” live action movie. Well, maybe they could. Animation wise, this is probably the best I’ve seen; it’s astonishingly well made. The only things that don’t really work, are the faces of the characters -- especially their eyes. They all have glassy eyes, since it’s very hard to animate life; that certain spark in the eyes, or whatever it is, that gives the impression of a real, live human being. The lack of this spark makes the characters resemble wax dummies or maybe even stiffs.

My second remark is that there’s a little too much action in the movie. A little too much gunfire, a few too many and too long fights, and a couple of chases too many. On second thought, this was probably how Hergé imagined his adventures. Hergé was very interested in movies and his storytelling was cinematic -- and the early Tintin comics were very wild and action-packed; the pacing was even faster than in Spielberg’s movie. Not surprisingly, John Williams provides the music score, meaning it’s almost unavoidable that the adventures feel like the ones of Indiana Jones, especially when the characters end up in North Africa. But I think Hergé would be delighted if he were here and could enjoy the epic sceneries and the bombastic music. I’ve never really thought about what type of music that would fit the adventures of Tintin -- more than the jewel aria from “Faust”.

But besides these remarks, “The Secret of the Unicorn” is a very entertaining movie made with a lot of love for the original comics. The story is based on the the two albums “The Secret of the Unicorn” and “The Treasure of Rackham the Red,” but to be able to give Captain Haddock a proper introduction, they’ve added a few bits and pieces from “The Crab with the Golden Claws” as well; the story in which Haddock appeared for the very first time. And this works very well. One artist and comics expert I know pointed out they’ve also added a little tribute to one of Carl Bark’s Donald Duck episodes, and even if I’m far from an expert on Donald Duck, I note that the final showdown resembles Bark’s story quite a lot.

“The Secret of the Unicorn” opens with great looking titles, accompanied by very fitting, 1930s style jazz. Then we’re on a square in Brussels, it gives the impression of being the ‘30s, and what do you know if the very first character we see isn’t Hergé himself, who’s making a portrait of Tintin -- a portrait made in Hergé’s classical style. Behind Hergé there’s a bunch of portraits of other characters we recognize from the comics.

On this square, Tintin finds a model of an old ship. Tintin buys the model, but it doesn’t take long before other people show and and are willing to pay large sums for the model. One of the buyers is the shady Sakharine.

Tintin goes back home to his apartment, and lo and behold -- he’s got a typewriter on his desk! And not just one, he has several. Framed articles are hanging on the walls. Yes, in this movie, Tintin really is a reporter and he talks about writing for his newspaper -- unlike in the comics.

Bad guys break into Tintin’s place, the model of the ship is stolen, Tintin finds clues to where the treasure of pirate Rackham the Red might be hidden, and within soon, Tintin and his trust dog Snowy (Milou in French) have embarked on a breathtaking adventure, where the clumsy detectives Thomson and Thompson appear every now and then, where Captain Haddock gets drunk when he really should stay sober, and where Bianca Castafiore sings arias and makes glass crack and Haddock go insane.

There’s undeniably something special about seeing all these familiar scenes from the comics on a big movie screen, in several cases it looks almost exactly like in the albums. I think the story is faithful to the original comics, even if they’ve tampered with the material quite a lot -- something they of course had to do, since this movie is aimed large audiences of which huge parts have no idea who Tintin is. It is after all impossible to make an expensive movie aimed only at West Europeans who grew up with Hergés characters.

The characters kind of resemble the actors who’ve been motion captured and provide the voice acting. Jamie Bell is Tintin (who looks more like Leonardo de Caprio), Andy Serkis is Captain Haddock, Daniel Craig is both Sakharine and Rackham the Red, while Simon Pegg and Nick Frost portray Thomson and Thompson.

And what about the 3-D? Yes, the movie is naturally in 3-D. Well … It’s not exceptional, but it’s at least not blurred and headache inducing.

Anyhow: I liked “The Secret of the Unicorn.” Quite a lot. I think the movie is far better than I thought it would be, and I’m looking forward to the next installment.

However, the big question is what the Americans, unfamiliar with the characters, will think about this …

Images copyright © Sony Pictures Entertainment

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