Posted on Saturday, 5 November 2011

THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN: THE SECRET OF THE UNICORN (Spielberg, 2011) - The most amusing thing about this one is spotting the Spielberg touches in animated form, when there are no practical limits to what he can do. Thus, we don’t only get many reflections and matches-on-shape, but we actually see entire scenes start in water drops, or suddenly tinyfied and transposed under someone’s foot. It makes for a very fluid, dynamic film, that maintains the cartoonish nature of the source while filling it out with many little details. Unfortunately - especially in combination with the 3D and the mo-cap - it also makes it feel a little distant, like watching a diorama, and I was never really immersed in the film. And other Spielberg touches bothered me: did we really have to have Haddock’s moment of triumph be that he refuses some liquor? As a sometime critic, it annoys me when I can’t quite put the finger on why I didn’t like a film quite as much as I thought I would, but I’m afraid this is one of those cases. I was entertained by TINTIN, but it ultimately was a bit of a letdown. 

THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN: THE SECRET OF THE UNICORN (Spielberg, 2011) - The most amusing thing about this one is spotting the Spielberg touches in animated form, when there are no practical limits to what he can do. Thus, we don’t only get many reflections and matches-on-shape, but we actually see entire scenes start in water drops, or suddenly tinyfied and transposed under someone’s foot. It makes for a very fluid, dynamic film, that maintains the cartoonish nature of the source while filling it out with many little details. Unfortunately - especially in combination with the 3D and the mo-cap - it also makes it feel a little distant, like watching a diorama, and I was never really immersed in the film. And other Spielberg touches bothered me: did we really have to have Haddock’s moment of triumph be that he refuses some liquor? As a sometime critic, it annoys me when I can’t quite put the finger on why I didn’t like a film quite as much as I thought I would, but I’m afraid this is one of those cases. I was entertained by TINTIN, but it ultimately was a bit of a letdown. 

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  1. notesonfilms posted this