One of the advantages that animation provides is the freedom with which to design completely original moments of physical movement without being confined to the trappings of live action.A recent film that demonstrated this perhaps better than any other was Pixar's The Incredibles, which was directed by Brad Bird. Bird was able to stretch his imagination with the action scenes and th result was one of the most exciting films of that year. Steven Spielberg is perhaps the best ever at creating memorable and original action set pieces in the live action medium, so it was a very exciting prospect to see him tackling the unlimited capabilities of computer animation with The Adventures of Tintin. Unfortunately, he was only half successful as the exciting action scenes were undone by a poorly structured and uninteresting story.
The Adventures of Tintin is based on a popular comic book series in Europe of the same name. It follows a young reporter named Tintin whose investigations get him mixed up in some wild adventures. He has a trusty sidekick dog named Snowy and two bumbling detectives (named Thompson and Thomson) who help him out. The film version sees him getting mixed up in a mystery involving a model ship that many people seem very eager to get. When it is stolen from his house, he goes on what turns out to be a globetrotting journey to recover it and prevent those who stole it from their nefarious deeds.
Spielberg does make good use of computer animation. The action sequences in Tintin are incredibly thrilling and exhausting. He designs very creative chase sequences that seem to never end, much in the great tradition of the Indiana Jones series. One of my favorites is Snowy's attempts to rescue Tintin after he's been kidnapped. There's also a dangerous seaplane adventure where Spielberg comes up with a long list of creative problems for our heroes to encounter. The film really comes alive during these moments.
What really hurts the film is some baffling storytelling choices. The story starts off as an interesting mystery and Tintin's efforts to solve it were engrossing. However, the film makes the bizarre decision to completely stop at the 2/3rds mark and have one character explain everything through an endless series of expository flashbacks. The movie just completely dies right here with all the momentum they'd built from the stunning action sequences just completely falling apart. And after all that, the true resolution of the mystery is a major disappointment.
Another problem is that the characters never come alive. We don't learn much about Tintin other than he's a plucky and resourceful investigator. More time could've been spent at the beginning giving us more of a glimpse who he is instead of just thrusting him right into his mystery. The bumbling detectives Thompson and Thomson have a few amusing moments, but more often than not the slapstick chemistry between these two does not work. The villains and pirates that populate the mystery plot are all tired stock retreads. It says something that the most fascinating character in the entire film is Tintin's sidekick dog Snowy. It's rare that I don't like a Steven Spielberg film, but he really misfired with this one.
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