December of 2011 was a great time to be a Steven Spielberg fan as he had two films release within four days of one another. The first of these two, The Adventures of Tintin, is a rousing adventure film he collaborated on with Peter Jackson as well as his first animated film.
Tintin (played by Jamie Bell) is a young reporter with a thirst for adventure. He gets more than he bargained for when he buys a model of a triple masted shipping vessel named the Unicorn. He is given an offer to buy it from a shady fellow named Sakharine (played by Daniel Craig), but refuses and takes it home, his faithful dog Snowy by his side. Curious about the interest in the ship, he begins researching the history of the ship and upon examining it further discovers a hidden scroll within the ship that gives a clue to the resting spot of the treasure the sunken vessel contained. He is subsequently kidnapped by Sakharine's goons, who want the scroll for themselves as it is one of three total that hold the answer to the location of the lost treasure. Taken aboard a ship, Tintin is able to escape his captors and crosses paths with Captain Archibald Haddock (played by Andy Serkis), who is a direct descendant of the Captain of the Unicorn. The two decide to team up to retrieve the last remaining scroll and beat Sakharine and his goons to the treasure.
Steven Spielberg was first introduced to the classic Tintin comics when he was in Paris promoting Raiders of the Lost Ark. He was reading a review in a French newspaper that kept referring to Tintin but didn't understand what that meant. He was then introduced to the Tintin books and was immediately taken by the artwork and stories contained within. He immediately wanted to make a film out of them. Meanwhile, the author and artist behind the original Tintin books, Herge, felt that Steven Spielberg was the only director that could do Tintin justice. Spielberg would revisit the material several time over the years but struggled to find a way to bring it to the big screen in a way that he felt still honored the artistry of the original books. Revisiting it shortly after the latest Indiana Jones film, Spielberg reached out to Peter Jackson's effects company, Weta, to see if they would be able to create a convincing CGI Snowy, since he knew he'd never get the performance he needed from a real dog. A few months later, a test reel arrived that not only had a convincing CGI Snowy, but also featured Peter Jackson himself dressed as Captain Haddock. Overjoyed, Spielberg suggested the two should collaborate on the film as Jackson was a lifelong Tintin fan himself. As they discussed the film, they decided to do the film using the performance capture animation style that would offer the sort of uncanny live action feel while also preserving the artwork style that Herge created. In fact, there is a cameo of sorts for Herge as in the beginning of the film when Tintin is having a portrait done and the artist doing the portrait is made up to look like Herge (who had sadly passed away by this point). Furthermore, in a cute moment, the portrait is of the comic version of Tintin.
Spielberg took to the new filming format quite well, manning the camera himself for much of the motion capture process and enjoying the freedom it allowed. He is able to pull off camera moves and angles that would have been difficult if not impossible to pull off in live action. This is certainly one of his more active films in terms of camera movement and the results are quite stunning. No where is this more evident than in a chase scene between Tintin and Haddock and Sakharine and his goons as they try to get the three scrolls from one another. The entire chase is done in one shot as the camera follows each person as they get the scrolls from the other while chaos reigns around them. It's a fantastically executed sequence that would have been impossible to pull off in live action. Then on top of that, the animation in it's finished state is nothing short of jaw dropping for the level of detail the attained. They even took the time to animate lens flares where they would occur if the film was shot live action.
The cast assembled for the film is fantastic. Jamie Bell plays Tintin impeccably, perfectly bringing to life the character's love for mystery and adventure as well as his genuinely inquisitive nature. Andy Serkis is great as Captain Haddock, who is some ways is similar to Tintin in his love for adventure, but also has a love of drinking that the more straight laced Tintin does not approve of. Serkis is clearly having a ball playing the colorful character and that joy is infectious. Daniel Craig is similarly having fun with the dastardly Sakharine, who is determined to obtain that treasure for himself for his own mysterious reasons and is prepared to kill anyone who gets in his way, including Tintin and Haddock. In a supporting role are Nick Frost and Simon Pegg as police officers Thomson and Thompson, who despite looking nearly identical are not in fact related. Frost and Pegg are having a ball bringing the two inept and clumsy detectives to life and their longtime friendship plays well into their character's bantering and bumbling.
One of the more disheartening film going experiences occurred when I went to see this film on opening night on December 21st, 2011 and discovered I had the theatre entirely to myself. Under other circumstances, this might be seen as good news but for the opening night of a new Spielberg movie, I found it rather saddening. Still, I enjoyed the hell out of the movie and didn't let it bother me too much, but I still wanted it to do better than it did. It certainly did better in the foreign markets that were more familiar with the original Herge albums. I loved the film from beginning to end myself and it was immediately one of my favorite Spielberg films from then on. It's gone on to be discovered by audiences in U.S in the years since. It was recently announced that the long promised second film, this time directed by Peter Jackson, is still happening and should be out in the next 2-3 years. I, for one, can't wait.
No comments:
Post a Comment