Movie Review: The Adventures of Tintin

Synopsis: Tintin, accompanied by his remarkable dog Snowy, and a drunken Captain Haddock set off on a treasure hunt for a sunken ship commanded by Haddock's ancestor. But someone else is in search of the ship, so with aid from bumbling Interpol agents the Thompson Twins our boy hero, his dog and the captain must prevent them from getting what they want.

Think of this as a animated version of the classic Raiders of the Lost Ark with a young boy playing the Indy Jones role. It's a very spirited and thrilling adventure that's just non-stop action from the onset. Perhaps a little too non-stop at times as it gets pretty tricky to keep up with what's going on as the Hardy Boys type mystery unfolds and frankly it's just a bit exhausting. Another problem for me was I'm just not that familiar with the source material and I think all the characters that others might already know well I was just being introduced to, which made it feel a bit force-fed.

Visually though it's just mind-blowing. This is about the sweet use of motion capture and CG animation that you'll see. The characters looks very real and human (even the difficult eyes) and the action sequences are just awesome. Personally I hate and am sick of 3D (especially the $12.50 per ticket I paid to see this) but dammit if you see anything in 3D this year make it this. Totally worth it... it's just a work of art visually.

It's a good old-fashioned adventure that kids should love and adults will be impressed by. Perhaps no classic as the story may be lacking a bit and it becomes sort of 1 big action sequence after another, but definitely some real fun.

7/10