TINTIN Discussion

The action in this is absolutely fantastic. Some breakneck, edge of your seat stuff.

 

It's been a couple of hours, and I barely remember anything else about it. Really should have been called The Adventures Of Captain Haddock, since Tintin himself is barely a character. This feels like part two of a series, where we've already been introduced to this guy, and we understand why he loves adventures and mysteries and seems to be a kid despite carrying around and firing a gun without explanation.

The only scene I wasn't a fan of was that crane fight. It just felt unnecessary, overplayed, just didn't really go anywhere. Not too much though, or enough to take away from the film. And a lot has to be said about the whole "Rackhams vs. Haddocks, it just felt a tad bit cheesy to me. However, all things considered, it's got to be one of my favorites this year.

Unlike Hugo, Tintin is a film that doesn't really benefit from 3D tech, but that's my only real complaint about the film. Loved it. This is practically non-stop action from start to finish without wasting any time getting into the thick of things, and without taking more than a moment to breathe every once in a while. In point of fact, the film is actually exhausting to a degree because of how energetic it is, though I mean that to be entirely complimentary. 

 

Loved Serkis here, and he's definitely the scene-stealer in every respect-- everything he does is wonderful. I think the man was born to play mo-capped roles. That said I don't think it's fair to short-change the rest of the cast, particularly Bell who manages to stand up to Serkis' presence and also gives Tintin the spark of life necessary to understand the character's drive to uncover the film's central mystery. Yes, we're given the information that Tintin is a journalist, and he's clearly in the profession because of his insatiable curiosity and love for adventure, but I think Bell humanizes those qualities and makes them part of the character rather than just allowing them to exist as givens in Tintin's line of work. Tintin's a guy driven by a need to know the truth of the mystery, as Bell sells it. Worked for me.

 

Watching this made me wish Spielberg had produced this instead of Crystal Skull three years ago (side note: does it feel like it's been much, much longer since Indy 4 came out or is it just me?). Indeed, this is a film very much in the tradition of Indiana Jones in every way, from the world-trotting adventure to the characterization of its lead; they have at least a spiritual kinship, and I know I'm not the first to make that connection. More than anything, though, there's an overwhelming sense that Spielberg had a grin cracked throughout the entire production of Tintin-- he's VERY clearly enjoying himself here, which translates to the audience and makes the film that much better as a result.

 

Could be a top ten pick for me. (But do consider that I've only seen ~50 movies this year, so my pickings are somewhat slim.)

I will say that the extended pirate sequence in this is pretty much exactly what they were trying and failing to do with the second and third Pirates of the Carribbean movies. I could almost hear Spielberg muttering, "FUCKYOU, Verbinski!"

 

+1 for someone also mentioning a Sumatran Rat Monkey.

I'll also submit my approval of the pirate ship battle. It's far and away the best action sequence in the entire film.

I really enjoyed this, a massive step up from Indiana Jones And His Crystal Skull.

I had a problem with the story setup, though, I couldn't really get why Tintin was risking his life to find a few pieces of paper at the start of the movie. It's mentioned that he's a journalist, and Bell gives an enthustiastic performance, but things get so hectic right away that a bit more character motivation would have gone a long way to make you care. Raiders, for example, set up its story beautifully. You're told the stakes; Herr Hitler wants the Ark for nefarious reasons, and you see that Indy gives a shit; he's obsessed with ancient artifacts, he's more alive when he's adventuring, as opposed to when he's in the classroom, and he's just come from a humiliating defeat by Belloq, which he must want to put right. That kind of strong setup probably isn't in the Tintin comics, but I think it would have been a good addition.

But you start to care about halfway through when you get a bit of backstory, and the action sequences are wicked, and the interplay between Haddock and Tintin works really well. I was entertained.

I LOVED this.  It's kinda funny that I saw it and MI4 within the past week, because they're nearly the same movie.  A cipher character getting into a series of adventurous setpieces.  AND WHAT SETPIECES! 

 

I'm not minding the cipher nature of either film at all.  I really like the energy that Bell (and Cruise for MI4) bring to their roles and for adventure movies executed this well, their blank slate characters don't bug me.  They may not have much going on as characters, but they've got spirit and that taste for doing what they do best.   I ended up not caring at all why Tin Tin would risk so much.  I just loved that he has no problem kicking ass and wielding a pistol.  I love that the movie didn't shy away from any of that.

 

Just hearing Williams' score over establishing shots of ships rocking through violent storms had me going, "THIS is what Indy should've been!"

 

I love that the slightly different distance that animation gives me ends up making such flamboyantly staged action sequences feel so much more engaging than seeing the same thing happen in Pirates 3 (as Gabe mentioned).  Instead of thinking about what was green-screened and what was a digital Johnny Depp, I was just able to get sucked into the inventiveness of Spielberg's joyful action filmmaking completely.

 

This was just so much fluffy light fun.  I got some goosebumps at Haddock's final line of, "UNQUENCHABLE!!!"

 

- I would also love to see Daniel Craig play an over-the-top villain.  As awesome as he is as Bond, that role is generally too stoic and mumbly.  There were times where I could hear Craig in the villain's voice, but lots of other times when it sounded like a completely different actor.  I want to see that range in a live-action performance from Craig.

Road to Perdition?

 

I'd considered that, but I haven't seen the film in so long and didn't recall him going particularly over-the-top.  I recall his character being more of a low-key villain, especially in comparison to Jude Law's character.
 

 

Caught a 3D screening, loved it. They got so much right in the details of the characters, down to the voices. I never imagined Captain Haddock with a Scots accent but now nothing else makes sense.

 

Wasn't quite there with Frost & Pegg as T&T-- maybe it was the voices, maybe it was the way the pickpocket subplot got trimmed down from the book. That said, the characterization of the pickpocket himself was very amusingly embellished.

 

Could have done without the talk of a curse and "only a true Haddock." That's just Screenplay 101 button-pushing. And I agree that the crane fight was unnecessary.

 

3D is used very well here, with lots of attention paid to reflections and atmospherics. I'll probably catch it again just for the pirate fight.

Edited by Hammerhead - 12/20/11 at 10:52pm

I got the BIGGEST extended laugh when I realized Haddock's "AHHHHH!" of realization early in the film was actually just him unleashing his breath.  God, I cracked up at that so hard.

I posted this a week ago in the CHUD screening news article thread.  I searched for a TINTIN thread then but nothing came up.  Maybe I'm not doing it right.

 

Anyway, after all you guys have said, I don't have much new stuff to add.  I'm not a big 3-D movie guy, but I thought that it was really well done.  It may not have needed it, but I think it only adds to the atmosphere and never really distracts from it.  I also thought that this was more true to what INdy 4 should have been and that the Pirate sequences beat all the Johnny Depp stuff in terms of how well they work.  And the motion capture stuff if the best I've seen, hands down.  Serkis gets the prize for performance, but the animation itself is the stuff that Zemeckis was going for in his last few and failed to deliver (from what I've seen anyway.  I haven't seen a film of his all the way through since Cast Away and I love the man's back-catalog.)

Got to be honest, saw it Saturday. Didn't care for it.

 

EDIT: Serkis was great, though.

If the setpieces at least didn't get your blood pumping, you're dead inside.

Perhaps then. But Tintin as a character is like watching paint dry. 

 

I don't want to go into it too much, because I'm saving some of these ideas for my review. But I miss the days where Spielberg would take his influences and craft them into an original work, ala Indiana Jones. And also I have some issues with mocap as a medium. Part of me really wanted to see what Spielberg could have done if this were live action.

The action sequences are, in many cases, almost impossible to pull off without mocap. I've been pimping it everywhere, but the falcon chase would be unthinkable in live action.

Indiana Jones isn't exactly original.  Which is kind of the point.

 

Richard, original in the sense that it was its own character and filtered Spielberg's influences. Obviously Raiders was derivative of stuff like Doc Savage, old serials and probably even Tintin.

And the Falcon chase is part of what I'm taking issue with. Action was so busy and over the top, I had a hard time getting into it. They establish pretty early on that there's no real sense of danger for these characters. It looks pretty but I wasn't exactly on the edge of my seat.

 

My five year-old kept up with it just fine.

I'm not saying it was hard to keep up with, just that it was needlessly busy to the point of being tiresome. If there's no sense of danger for me, and at this point in the film there was not, then really it's just a technical exercise. This was like watching Spielberg play with his action figures for a couple hours.

With enough resources, someone like Spielberg COULD pull of the Tin Tin sequences in live-action.  But as I said earlier in the thread, that much inventiveness and over-the-top filmmaking takes me out of a live-action action sequence.  That's what ended up happening with me and the climactic battle of Pirates 3.  It's as if I don't trust it.  And since the story in that movie had gotten so convoluted and pointless, it was hard to care about anything.

 

But when the same thing is done in animation, the medium gives me just enough distance to really get into it even if the material wasn't totally there. 

You also don't have the issue of trying to cast/make-up real human beings to look like cartoon characters.  Be honest, a live-action Jamie Bell with that Tintin hair-do would probably get laughed off the screen.  Do it as animation though and you can create a heightened style in which something like that isn't worth batting an eye over.

See, for me, the busy worked. The busy is what gives not just the action set-pieces but the entire film itself a spark. Spielberg puts so much detail and so much movement and action into every frame as to make a motion-captured animated picture feel shockingly alive; it's world-building excitement. That sort of filmmaking lends itself to being very demanding, but Spielberg knows how to require something of his audience without burdening them. And largely that's why I reacted to it as strongly and positively as I did.

Aside from the quality of the animation in terms of selling the characters and locations, I was delighted by how well they were complemented by the angles and lighting.  Much like How to Train Your Dragon (which had the esteemed Roger Deakins as its lighting consultant), there are scenes where the equally talented Janusz Kamiński makes the film just as layered in its cinematography as any of his live-action collaborations with Spielberg.

Watched this earlier and thought it was a very fun movie. The falcon chase is probably the first time I've watched a movie and realized I was watching Spielberg's unlimited imagination at work. Quite thrilling.

So, uh, why does Tintin own a gun? He takes it out and fires it like it's no big deal. Isn't he some sort of kid reporter? The movie's attitude is sorta like, FUCK YOU, YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS BY NOW and you just have to go with Tintin having a crack-addict attitude towards "adventure."

I actually loved that about Tin Tin.  It's why I didn't mind that he wasn't a particularly interesting character.  BECAUSE HE'S A BOY SCOUT REPORTER WITH A GUN!!!

The Today show had a segment, uh, today about Tintin in which one person interviewed mentioned Herge's minimalist approach to drawing Tintin himself. I can't remember the commenter, but he remarked in regards to Herge's artistic decision that doing so meant "any of us could be Tintin". Something to that effect.

 

I think that's also true of his characterization. Tintin has nothing tying him down and no family to speak of; we only know that he's a reporter with an insatiable curiosity and a thirst for adventure. Being such a blank slate, I think, has that exact same effect spoken of in the Today show segment. He's such a stripped-down character because anyone could be him; going further I think Tintin just represents the adventurer in all of us.

 

Why shouldn't he? His idea of getting a good story involves putting his life in danger. That was at least the second time someone ended up bullet-ridden and dead on his doorstep.

We both dug it pretty hard.

 

http://www.chud.com/77898/tag-team-review-the-adventures-of-tintin/

Loved it, esp. Snowy!  The motorcycle chase is one for the ages.  Lots of fun.  

Really wanted to love this, but just couldn't get into it until they got to the desert.  Maybe I was expecting the rollicking non-stop adventure I've heard this praised as, but this gets off to such a slow start, and Tintin is such a non-character, that it really feels like a bit of a slog early on.  It's almost as if they expect us to already know and have an emotional investment in the character, so they never bother to create one.  Not that I wanted this to be an Indiana Jones clone, but this really needed an Indy-style intro, where we see the conclusion of one of Tintin's adventures, just so we have an idea what he's about.  The opening credit sequence sort of works like that, but it's too abstract to help us warm to the character.

 

But then we get into the plane and it's like everybody involved finally got excited about the material.  I loved Spielberg's transitions between the past and the present as Haddock remembers the story of the Unicorn, the plane crash is a great sequence, and the motorcycle chase is a classic.  I even enjoyed the dueling cranes at the end.  But it all came so late in the game.  I don't get why they spent all that time with the pick-pocket, time that could have been devoted to getting Haddock into the story sooner and getting it moving faster.

 

It's not a bad film, and it's certainly a step forward in the use of motion capture.  I just wish it had all been in service to a more immediate-feeling story.

Really? Interesting; I rather felt like the story started moving from the minute we met TIntin. There's almost no downtime in between the opening pickpocket sequence and the introduction of the Unicorn, which itself comprises the film's central mystery.

 

And TOMB RAIDER and INFAMOUS

I don't disagree that the story starts right off the bat.  I just wasn't engaged with it until the plane crash.

Before the non-stop string of insane, SPIELBERG UNLEASHED setpieces began, the dog kept me interested. He's always doing something and I kept looking at him during dialogue scenes.

 

Oh and I wanted to know more about about Mrs Finch!

She just wants to side down and read a book and is so tired of this shit.

 

Tintin: Mrs. Finch! A man's been shot at our doorstep!

 

Mrs. Finch: not again...

I absolutely loved this when I saw it a little over a week ago.  Can't wait for the sequel, which unfortunately won't be here until at least 2014.  I guess you can't really have a better excuse than "Sorry, I'm making The Hobbit first!" though.

 

I completely forgot about that!

 

He'd make a great villain for Indiana Jones V, if it does end up being made.  Or a future Star Trek sequel, since Craig is apparently a Trekkie!

 

I can't account for Infamous (haven't seen it), but Craig certainly isn't over-the-top in either Road To Perdition or Tomb Raider.  In the former is a creepy sociopath, but plays it rather low-key.  In the latter, he really isn't a villain at all...........he's just got a bit less morals than Lara Croft.  In the end he turns against his employer and Croft takes it upon herself to save his life.  Hell, he'd have been her pseudo-partner in the sequel if he hadn't refused an offer to come back (and was thus replaced with Gerard Butler)!

 

So while he has played villainous characters, he's yet to nab a truly juicy OTT bad guy role outside of his voicework here.  I'm sure we'll get our wish in live action form someday.  I just hope it is in something worthy of such a performance.

Goddamn, I loved this. It's too much fun for one movie to contain, and I sincerely hope Jackson gets to direct that sequel. Laundry list!:

 

-Having recently read the two stories that the film takes from (The Secret of the Unicorn and The Crab with the Golden Claws, respectively), it's remarkably well-adapted by Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish. The Golden Claws material on the ship, on the plane and in the desert fits in perfectly with the Unicorn storyline, and changes like making Sakharine the villain and Red Rackham's descendant (in the comic, he was a harmless old ship collector who mostly served as a red herring) make it a real FILM.

 

-The performance capture is the best yet aside from Monster House (and like Nick, I will defend Beowulf to my dying breath for its excellent action, acting and story). It's not creepy, no one is a direct actor-to-character transition, and the Herge style translates surprisingly well. The digital landscape also frees up Spielberg to deliver some of his wildest action in years; my particular favorites are both pirate battles and the much-lauded falcon chase.

 

-The acting itself? Phenomenal. Jamie Bell gives Tintin loads of energy and optimism, Serkis is a motion-capture GOD at this point (his speech to Tintin about never giving up is fucking stirring), Daniel Craig is nigh-unrecognizable and awesome as Sakharine (I actually thought he hammed it up at the right moments-"DO I PAY YOU TO TALK TO ME?!"), Pegg and Frost are the perfect Thompson and Thomson, and little cameos like Toby Jones as the pickpocket, Cary Elwes as one of the pilots, and Tony Curran as the British lieutenant make things all the sweeter.

 

-Herge's "cameo" at the beginning as the artist who draws Tintin in the original style is pretty cool (he's also apparently one of the pirates).

 

-John Williams' score is nicely propulsive and pulpy, and the opening credits reminded me a LOT of Catch Me If You Can.

 

-Snowy is quite possibly the best fictional dog this side of Dug from UP.

 

-Did anyone else think Ben Salaad looked like a mix of David Cross and Spielberg himself?

 

-The look on Haddock's face after Tintin snaps that he can smell alcohol on him broke my damn heart.

 

This, Rango and Pooh are now my top three animated films of last year.

yep - that made me laugh out loud.  LOVED this movie.  It's also the most sold out of any movie I've seen in NZ and that's 2 weeks after release.  Loads of kids in the audience, all laughing, all cheering and it got a round of applause at the end which just does not happen here.  Honestly one of the best family based adventure movies I've seen in ages.

 

My 6 year old loved it to bits as well and kept gripping my arm during the action sequences going "is he going to be OK?".

 

I thought the 3d was subtle but great, especially during the action sequences and gave them a whole new sense of geography.  Also the final face off, as Saccharine was walking down the crane, the composition was perfect and used the 3D really well.

 

Also loved the small battle between Haddock and Snowy over the surgical alcohol while it was weightless, just amazing and completely Tintin.

 

The fluidity of the camera was something to behold as well, and some of the cross cuts (the boat in the ocean turning into a boat in a puddle) were mind boggling.  It really feels like Spielberg had a blast making this movie.

 

Finally, we got the Hobbit trailer in 3D and fuck me dead, that was gorgeous.  

 

I really hope this does well as I'm very keen to see Red Rackham's Treasure.

 

THERE ARE ONLY 41 POSTS IN THIS THREAD???

 

Holy crap, this thing was terrific. I'm late to the party, but I rented it last night and have watched it three times already. It hits me right where I live. I'm gonna watch it again tonight.

Yeah, the movie didn't much action around here.  Though... I believe there was two threads for this movie for some reason.  So that is part of the reason the post count is even lower.

Thread needs more passionate disagreement. About, I dunno, something.

 

I do feel that it was unnecessary to turn Sakharine into Rackham's descendant. I would have preferred to keep the Byrd brothers as the villains.

Edited by Hammerhead - 5/11/12 at 12:30pm

NO Hammer! It most certainly DOES NOT!!!

Hunger Games grosses! John Carter marketing! Rrraaaarr!

SHUT UP, HAMMERHEAD!!!

Blistering barnacles!

Haddock's tough guy version of "Thundering Typhoons..." when he gets the best of Sakharine at the end is the movie's best exclamation moment.

 

Snowy is the best character. I love that the movie ends on him. He did most of the work!

I really must watch this again. Such a blast. By the way, they have confirmed that THE CALCULUS AFFAIR will be the next movie. Odd choice. I was hoping it would be CRYSTAL BALLS / PRISONERS or the MOON books.