This is Entry 250: Brian on the Aisle #12

This post is will be multi-tasking post. It's a 250th post, It's the 12 entry in Brian on the Aisle & I'm counting this as a part of the 2012 Project. The movie I'll be reviewing is The Adventures of Tintin.

Early on in my readership of comic books (The Early to the Mid 1990's): I read the Tintin books, collected almost the whole series (didn't notice until recently that I'm missing a few books). I loved them as kid. Still like them as an Adult. They are Awesome!

My enjoyment of the books were greatly enhanced by the fact at the same time that I was reading these books there was also an animated series based on the books on TV (They were on the cable network HBO. I think the cartoon were Canadian made or at least release in the States by a Canadian company). I could see all the action on the screen & then add those moving images to when I read the books.

------------

As I have done in the past, I saw Tintin at the second run theater near my house (3 dollars a movie!). Tintin is also one of the those movies that recently came out in both 2D & 3D, the theater I saw at it didn't does that the fancy 3D to show it in. I saw a few times during the movie that it might of looked cool if I saw it in 3D. But seeing in 2D in no way diminished my viewing of the movie.

The "Adventures of Tintin" series of books span over 20 books. What adventure do you start with? I think the filmmakers went with a good choose. A personal favorite of mine, a storyline that I'll be calling the Unicorn Saga. The Saga unfolds over 2 books: The Secret of the Unicorn & Red Rackham's Treasure. The movie was not just a translation of those 2 books. The Movie is a mix of those 2 books, parts & characters from another book in the series (The Crab with the Golden Claws) & Bianca Castafiore (a supporting character who appeared in a number of the Tintin books).

I understand why the added in the bits from The Crab with the Golden Crabs. That is the book where Tintin met Captain Haddock, a character who is featured quite heavily in the Unicorn Saga. So they had to explain how Tintin knew the Captain somehow. The addition of the Castafiore to the movie's story while not in any of the these 3 stories I did quite enjoy & didn't mind this alteration because it was in keeping with how she might have been used in the books.

The way the entire Unicorn saga is unfolded in the movie is totally different from the books they come from. Is this a bad thing? No. Not really. They needed to added in the elements from the Crabs to Unicorn so the overall story is different then the books. I did feel the melding of the 2 stories were done quite well. There were a few elements present in the Unicorn books that were felt out of the movie as they might of not made sense. Basically all of the plot to the Crabs books is not present in the movie which is ok since they only wanted to use the Unicorn plot line & having this secondary plot line would have been confusing as it in no way tied into the main Unicorn plot line.

The characterisation of Sakharine, the movie's main villain, is different then it is in the books. How he is presented in this movie he is more an amalgamation of very different characters from the books. This did leave me a bit puzzled as I watched the movie. I being a big fan of the books & having just reread the Unicorn saga recently I had the book freshly in the mind. I just couldn't place who Sakharine was in the books as I watched the movie. I knew that name! I thought of the character with that name to be a some what minor character (which I still think so as I took a look back at the books) where as in the movie he is the main villain! Many of the Tintin books used a number of different villains in the books & I can see why they wanted to have 1 central villain for the movie.

For the main cast, I would say the characterisations is pretty spot on. All the voices & actions fit with how I think they should have been. The catchphrases were all there! The CGI was a bit weird but something you could get use to. I was a bit weird seeing the "cartoony" look of the characters represent in such a realistic way. At times I felt that Captain Haddock's head was a bit to large.

Professor
Cuthbert Calculus

One thing I thing they could have done was the "whole" Unicorn story in this one movie. This one leaves us on a cliffhanger, setting up a sequel. I put the word whole in quotation marks because the movie does end how the story ends in the books. There were a few different events that happened in the books that didn't happen here & a few that happen in a different order. I suspect that many of those events would happen in the second movie. Many of those events are from the second book/second half of the story. I really hope they do make a sequel because my favorite character from the Tintin series is introduced in the second half of the Unicorn story. That character is Professor Cuthbert Calculus! He is Awesome! I'm not sure why I like him so much but I do. He is just plain awesome & quite a snappy dresser I might say. He was the one character I wanted to see show up in the movie but he didn't. Mainly because all of the stuff he did the Unicorn saga hadn't happened yet. If He's not in the sequel, I am going to be mad!

There were so nice references to the the other Tintin books in the movie (mostly in the opening credits & in the framed newspaper clippings at Tintin's home). You did get to see some of the Art of the books in the movie too which was nice.

So... Final Thoughts: What did I think of the movie? I thought it was good. Did I think going into that it was going to be bad & that it was going to "rape" a cherished piece of my childhood? No. I mainly wanted to see how they handled the story which they did quite well. It did quite boring (at least for me) during two long action sequences in the later half of the movie. I just felt they were overly long.

What do I give this movie? 3 & half Blistering Barnacles out of 5!

I greatly look forward to seeing the sequel!

Until next time, Stay Jazzy everybody!

- Brian