First off let’s try and clear up the obvious confusions. The Adventures of Tintin should not be confused with The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin. The later is about a dog. The former has a dog in it but he doesn’t slobber as much. TATT is based on stories by Herge, not Herve. Herve was the little guy who always said “Da plane! Da plane!” at the beginning of each Fantasy Island episode. Herge was the penname of Belgium author and cartoonist Georges Prosper Remi. Herge never once in his life said “Da plane! Da plane!”
The new film has all the credentials for success. It was directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings) and scored by John Williams. WOW!
The only people saying WOW after seeing TATT are cloistered nuns who have never seen a film and unsophisticated kids under the age of 10. Here’s why.
The film’s opening credits are a modernistic series of animated scenes that look exactly like those in the 2002 Spielberg film Catch Me If You Can. The score to CMIYC was also by Williams, with the main title being a clever jazz motif. The main title to TATT sounds just like the main title to CMIYC. This is the highlight of the film for adults.
Tintin is a young lad…age indeterminate. He is a writer and reporter living in Paris and has a cute dog named Snowy. Tintin has a head of red hair with a big wave in the front. The only way I can describe him is to paint this picture; have three glasses of cheap red wine and if you own a Andy Warhol designer electric can opener, look at it from the side…see Tintin? I am not really good at this descriptive stuff.
The film itself could have been called Young Tintiniana Jones’ Leftover Adventures. Every scene in this action-oriented story is stolen right out of the Indiana Jones movies. Williams’ music, other than the jazzy main title, is also a clone of Indiana Jones’ action sequence themes.
Eventually the 90 minutes of adventure and mystery pass by and the conclusion turns out as surprising as any of the Hardy Boys stories. Okay, so I never did figure out any of those endings, but you get the idea. The main point is that if you are an adult and haven’t been locked away since 1962, you don’t have to see TATT. You’ve already seen it.
Rated 2.2 out of 4.0 on the adult scale; 3.0 out of 4.0 on the 10-and-under scale. The can opener doesn’t work anymore.