The Adventures of Tintin

A visually perfect, fun-filled and innocent-looking adventure ride that in many ways looks like Idiana Jones in animated form. The action scenes are first-class and richly compensate for the not entirely believable story, which copies perhaps a thousand and one fairytales read to children at bedtime. As with Spielberg's other films, I was literally overjoyed while watching Tintin, my eyes and ears were fully satisfied, and since I wasn't expecting anything other than highly commercial popcorn entertainment, a full rating is firmly in place. (04/17/2012)

A technically perfect flick with a lot of visual ideas, but its inwardly impersonal and not funny at all. Did any of the characters work their way into your heart? Did Thomson and Thompson make you laugh? I suspect that this whole thing is just the first of the trailers for a future tourist attraction at Universal Studios. The BRILLIANT action scene in Morocco (which is the only highlight of the film apart from the opera scene) seems to indicate as much. (11/06/2011)

The boyish dream of Spielberg, who is only brought down by unnecessary megalomania, which sometimes kills space for subtle finesse. But other than that, I've been riding this wave from the beginning like a little bastard. The Adventures of Tintin is a beautifully simple, joyful and straightforward film about which there is no point in discussing anything at all. Steven created something that once held me breathless for hours and hours while reading adventure novels. A beautiful film. (10/26/2011)

Although the cleverest character of the movie is a dog, any simplicity is replaced by Spielberg’s playfulness and talent for this particular genre. State of the art technology (Zemickis’ innovation gets a good slap in the face when Spielberg manages in one movie to do what he worked on for years) is a blessing mainly in the action scenes, which are lively, full of ideas, humorous and perfect. The ending has superb gradation, including the grandiose clash of the two main antagonists on the crane. Beautiful work. (02/24/2012)

The Adventures of Tintin is brought down by its comic book source with the central hero, who, in my opinion, lacks charisma and earns no sympathy from me. I completely missed out on the comic book series, even when I was part of the target age group. On the other hand, it is necessary to acknowledge Steven Spielberg for making the most out of the limited space offered by the comic book world and creating a typical Indiana Jones-like adventure ride, lightened by plenty of clever jokes and crazy action stunts. However, Indiana Jones has a big advantage in terms of the main character - a likable adventurer with a careless appearance and definitely not perfect, whereas Tintin, with his slick hairstyle, simply lacks spark and is rather boring. In comparison to Indiana Jones, the supporting characters are generally not interesting, except for the perpetually alcohol-soaked captain and his villainous adversary. Truth be told, the story itself doesn't have the potential to captivate the audience, but then again, we have Spielberg's amazing ability to enchant mainly male audiences of all ages with an adventurous spectacle, which makes even old dads gladly return to their early teenage years when they devoured cheap paperback books with eye-catching covers. We also have Spielberg's traditional professional perfectionism and the generous budget afforded by previous commercial hits. The result is a very decent and, within the current pop culture, highly above-average commercial spectacle, essentially an action blockbuster for the whole family. Furthermore, Spielberg understands the possibilities of animated film and knows how to work magic with both the camera and computers, adding a dimension to the traditional Indiana Jones stunts that are only possible in an animated film. Spielberg, at the same time, indulges his viewers a little by including references to his previous famous works. Try to guess who his Moroccan emir resembles, for example. I may not come back to Tintin anytime soon, but of all the highly anticipated animated blockbusters this year, it appealed to me the most and unquestionably surpassed films like Rango and many others. Overall impression: 85%. (11/20/2011)