The Adventures of Tintin (Steven Spielberg, 2011)

[Brian C]

Cynically, I wanted to say that motion capture is the most technically sophisticated yet aesthetically unimaginative form of animation possible. It's the sort of thing a cold, unimaginative technician would invent, someone who only thought of animation as a way of duplicating "life" without giving much consideration to the art form's ability to imbue every aspect of it with an artist's style/personality. With this Tintin, there is some attempt to make a 3D version of Herge's art, I'll give them that, but the result still tilts a bit towards a fake-looking recreation of "real life" people, especially in the close-ups. It's enough that it overwhelms whatever attempt was made to retain Herge's spirit in the actual look of the movie.

This was my reaction as well. I felt like my brain kept trying to reject it, the way my brain will wake me up during uncomfortable dreams. "No no no, this isn't right, this isn't real, stop it stop it stop it..."

It's a completely involuntary response that I try to block but can't, and as a result I'm simply unable to engage the movie in any way. I had similar reactions to the Zemeckis stop-motions also, which seem like very close cousins to this. And the impersonality of the animation that you describe really takes its toll, because it's so relentlessly frenetic and never settles down. MichaelB says earlier in the thread that this breakneck pace is very much in the spirit of the source material, and I'm sure that's true (I wouldn't know), but I thought it was draining. By the time it was done I actually felt relieved that it was over.

[Zot!]

Funny thread, there's like four pages of preemptive complaining, and then seemingly nobody actually saw the movie. Anyway, I feel qualified to review this now.
I never read the comics as a kid, but my four year old has been bewitched and we've read nearly every story together. The comics are already compromised as the UK English translations take some liberties with the humor and such. Some of the jokes, I assume are untranslatable, especially how some of the characters have very particular ways of speaking. That said, Herge does an admirable job of imbuing the art with enough personality to clear that hurdle. The movie is a dreadful bore, and works ridiculously hard to accomplish what the comic did with a minimum. It looks ugly, the characters are flat, the action IS hyperbolic, but tedium soon sets in. It also wasn't funny enough. Making this MORE realistic runs contrary to the obvious influence slapstick and cartoon humor had on the comics. I also felt no special imprint that Spielberg might have contributed. It seems wholly generic. Kid was similarly unimpressed. We continue to read the books, but no request has been made to revisit the movie.

[MichaelB]

Funny thread, there's like four pages of preemptive complaining, and then seemingly nobody actually saw the movie.

Nobody?

[Zot!]

sorry, I had meant among the forum members offering initial thoughts before the release. I appreciated your review Michael, even if I didn't share your positive experience.

[Gregory]

The only point in my seeing this would have been if I'd wanted to review it. There otherwise wasn't any incentive, as I don't like much of Spielberg's work, don't really go see things in 3D, don't like the look of anything I've seen made with motion capture technology, and don't think there's ever been a particularly good film or TV adaptation of Tintin by anyone. The trailers I watched really sealed the deal for me. I'd hesitate to identify as a "purist," but one of the main attractions to the Tintin comics for me has always been the comic book form itself and the particular visual world Hergé created with such great (deceptive) simplicity and humor, but the trailers just had me saying "Oh, no." Or

[hearthesilence]

Jesus, I had completely forgotten this movie and now I have to relive it again. Weren't they planning to do a sequel with Peter Jackson at the helm? I imagine it was either cancelled or delayed indefinitely. God, I really hope that there aren't anymore, at least more done like this...

[Dylan]

I liked The Adventures of Tintin even though I'm not really the audience for it (I have zero interest in CGI-animated movies and even less interest in contemporary comic book adaptations, and I'm indifferent about contemporary 3-D). But I am a Spielberg fan, generally speaking, so there's that. It has a very good John Williams score which for me was the best part about it, but it also has a nice sense of scope and globe-trotting adventure. A few good gags, as well, and the big chase is a highlight. It isn't as good as the other Spielberg film that year, War Horse (which I wrote a bit about in its respective thread), but it's surprisingly fun and I would recommend it.

As an aside, around the time of its release I seem to remember an awful lot of people (both online and in my daily life) confusing this film with Hugo & vice versa, which subsequently resulted in very few people I knew (or knew of) seeing either of them.

[thirtyframesasecond]

It didn't really work for me either. I'm a massive Tintin fan and not a Spielberg fan so was always going to have mixed feelings. I loved the opening credits though, perhaps they raised my expectations, only to be dashed by the mess that followed. I take it they've given up with the prospect of making any further films. Was this film even a hit?

[hearthesilence]

It was a sizable hit oversea ($300 million) but flopped in the U.S. ($78 million). Most likely profitable, but not enough to assuage risk fears for a sequel.

[Dylan]

According to this interview with Peter Jackson from December 2014 at least one sequel is still going to be made but it's still on the back burner:

Yes, Tintin, we will be doing that at some point soon. But what I want to explore next, there are a couple of New Zealand films I want to do.

Curious if there's any concern from those involved that if they wait too much longer nobody will remember the first one (which it seems, according to this thread, has already kind of happened).

loved the opening credits though, perhaps they raised my expectations

Those were fun. Like Catch Me If You Can, a nod to "old school" title sequences (neat quirky scoring, too).

[hearthesilence]

Just to be clear, my main beef is the look of the animation, which is pretty much everything in an animated movie. In terms of basic elements like the story, characters, action sequences, etc., they were probably fine, but they need to ditch motion capture.

[Lost Highway]

I hated everything about this, from the too real character design, to the dead eyed motion capture to the constant frantic noise and action. It may just be the most ill conceived film Spielberg has directed. He should have either made this as a fully animated film which stays true to the Herge designs (by far the best aspect of the comics) or they should have made a live action film. As is, this falls between two chairs and I found it just very ugly too look at.

You can see how actors struggled with the approach, with some going for realistic movement, while Serkis attempts to act like a cartoon. It's like putting a real horse inside of a pantomime horse. Why not employ animators who can enhance the movement and make the acting look less Uncanny Valley ? Live action directors who have no or little experience with animation often feel more comfortable with motion capture because they can still direct actors instead of animators, which is a less direct approach.

Motion capture is fine for special effects films like Avatar, the new Planet of the Apes films or Lord of the Rings, but I have not seen a single full "animation" film where it worked. I could not get into this at all and have rarely been so bored during a film.

[domino harvey]

Sequel coming after Peter Jackson completes a mystery project for Speilberg's Amblin Entertainment

[thirtyframesasecond]

Sequel coming after Peter Jackson completes a mystery project for Speilberg's Amblin Entertainment

Sounds like it could be a combo of The Seven Crystal Balls / Prisoners of the Sun, which makes sense - I think you'd need to combine two books with similar narratives to get a 2h film. And it'd get to shoot in Peru at least. I thought the first film was OK but as a massive Tintin film, I don't think turning this into a franchise has really has legs.

[feihong]

As another person who grew up reading Tintin, who then went on to Asterix, to Valerian, and later to Corto Maltese, Sillage, Adele Blanc–Sec, Yoko Tsuno, The Chimerical Brigade and many other Bande Desinees, I really hate the idea that more of these movies might be made. Part of what Tintin helped to do for Eurocomics was to establish a tone and feel at once less hyperbolic than that of American comics and at the same time more internally consistent. The Tintin books certainly began as raucous cliffhangers, but the history of the the development of Herge's style is the evolution of a more controlled, modulated form of story involvement, and Tintin the icon is a rather mild–mannered reasonably excitable character, living in a world that was as real as Herge could manage to create. That sense of detail and tonal consistency was very compelling, especially in the later Tintin books (and in the Tintin books that were rewritten and redrawn in the later style). You want to know what will happen to Tintin next, not necessarily because the stakes are so high, but because the tone of the narrative is so compelling. Many European comics have made great stories following in that tradition, and emphasizing consistent mood and atmosphere.

Spielberg's Tintin movie gets just about all of this wrong. By the time Tintin fights an eagle and tears down half a terraced city in a motorbike chase I was steaming with frustration. I don't see how retrofitting Tintin onto the Indiana Jones model gets anybody anywhere. The tone of the piece fluctuates about as wildly as can be. Letting two directors with muscular, hyperbolic visual styles have Tintin seems almost like a crime to me. Mind you, Luc Besson's Valerian doesn't bode any better (and his Adele Blanc–Sec was just a misery). I wish these guys would just let this project drop. These comics are too good to be bastardized as cheap swashbuckling.