The Adventures of Tintin
I saw this a couple of days ago. Executive summary: Indiana Jones look-alike, but doesn't grab you like Indy did. Unless your plans demand a visit to the cinema, or you have a six to sixteen year old adventure lover to entertain, wait for the DVD.
Bit I have some theories about the failure to grab you. Most reviews have been muck like mine, but a few have been of the form "they have destroyed my Tintin". One said "This is the ugliest film ever made. Simply, it out-aestheticises Hergé and murders him." Another said that Hergé got more emotion in Tintin's two black ellipses for eyes than this film does. Wjhich is unfair, in my opinion, but worth examining.
The fidelity to Hergé's original is impressive. The characters are just as first drawn. And, as someone who has worked in video effects, the imagery is impressive. The backgrounds are rich, detailed, and credibly real-world battered, The "camera" track, pans and zooms in a way any director would kill for, and the backgrounds remain realistic. Perhaps a bit too much, but it is after all and adventure movie. The character's movements are fluid and realistic - as they should be, since they are motion captured. The faces... Aye, there's the rub. They are nearly, but not quite, good enough. They fall into the Uncanny Valley.
For the deep fans, this is sacrilege. Hergé's two black ellipses didn't have emotion, but they allowed the reader to project their own emotion. The film is too good: you have to take the emotion offered to you - and it isn't quite good enough.
And that also explains why the film doesn't grab the rest of us. In the original film's you hoped and feared for Indy. Harrison Ford was a real, and charismatic, person, Of course, in the depths of your brain, you knew that Indy couldn't get killed in a film of this sort, but you were willing to suspend disbelief (except, perhaps, for the last). But the characters in Tintin are not quite realistic enough. You don't associate with them. In fact, because of the Uncanny Valley effect slightly repels rather than attracts. So you don't suspend disbelief, and the action is always at arm's length.
Credits to Andy Serkis for Captain Haddock's softly Clydeside accent (Though how he picked it up in Hergé's transparently continental chateau is best not asked, but it fits the character perfectly). For the rest, they needn't have bothered with the big name actors. The Hergé characters totally swamp them.
Bit I have some theories about the failure to grab you. Most reviews have been muck like mine, but a few have been of the form "they have destroyed my Tintin". One said "This is the ugliest film ever made. Simply, it out-aestheticises Hergé and murders him." Another said that Hergé got more emotion in Tintin's two black ellipses for eyes than this film does. Wjhich is unfair, in my opinion, but worth examining.
The fidelity to Hergé's original is impressive. The characters are just as first drawn. And, as someone who has worked in video effects, the imagery is impressive. The backgrounds are rich, detailed, and credibly real-world battered, The "camera" track, pans and zooms in a way any director would kill for, and the backgrounds remain realistic. Perhaps a bit too much, but it is after all and adventure movie. The character's movements are fluid and realistic - as they should be, since they are motion captured. The faces... Aye, there's the rub. They are nearly, but not quite, good enough. They fall into the Uncanny Valley.
For the deep fans, this is sacrilege. Hergé's two black ellipses didn't have emotion, but they allowed the reader to project their own emotion. The film is too good: you have to take the emotion offered to you - and it isn't quite good enough.
And that also explains why the film doesn't grab the rest of us. In the original film's you hoped and feared for Indy. Harrison Ford was a real, and charismatic, person, Of course, in the depths of your brain, you knew that Indy couldn't get killed in a film of this sort, but you were willing to suspend disbelief (except, perhaps, for the last). But the characters in Tintin are not quite realistic enough. You don't associate with them. In fact, because of the Uncanny Valley effect slightly repels rather than attracts. So you don't suspend disbelief, and the action is always at arm's length.
Credits to Andy Serkis for Captain Haddock's softly Clydeside accent (Though how he picked it up in Hergé's transparently continental chateau is best not asked, but it fits the character perfectly). For the rest, they needn't have bothered with the big name actors. The Hergé characters totally swamp them.