I find that, when it comes to film adaptations of comics, I usually fall to two different sets of thought. If a character is being adapted, such as Green Lantern and Wolverine, I am much less harsh in terms of critiques, because no specific story is being adapted, but rather bits and pieces of a larger mythos. If a graphic novel is being adapted, such as Watchmen or Sin City, I am a love it or hate it kind of guy based on how close to the source material they stay. After all, the story is already written; are they not trying to just bring an already established tale to life? That makes for something that is either a success or a failure, really.
The Adventures of Tintin is an adaptation of not one graphic novel, but two! And to make matters worse, a) I love Tintin and b) I’m judgmental and picky! Blistering barnacles!
Read on to find out why I’ve been described as “bitter film nerd at large”, and see if Tintin can survive my criteria.
The Adventures of Tintin tells the tale of two of Tintin’s adventures – The Crab with the Golden Claws and the Secret of the Unicorn. The film essentially mixes and mashes the two books together, rearranging pieces here, retooling scenes there and adding up entirely new sequences at parts. The main story is still there, however: after purchasing a model ship at a flea market, Tintin finds himself mixed up in an ancient treasure hunt, which itself becomes a battle being fought across time. With his trusty dog pal Snowy, Tintin teams up with Captain Archibald Haddock in a race against time against the villainous Sakharine to discover the secret of the Unicorn. Oh, and there’s also the two bumbling officers Thompson and Thompson, on the search for a pick pocket who, in their own way, become intertwined in the greater tale as well.
All things considered, Tintin is a rather imperfect adaptation. As mentioned, it picks and chooses what material it wants, keeps the outer shell and a fair amount of the interior, and then ramps everything up for an action-adventure closer to a videogame than Herge’s original stories. Herge’s tales were certainly hinged upon adventure and discovery, but in a different way than this; Herge exemplified the discovery aspect as well as the educational element, heavily researching the locales and information displayed in the Tintin stories. Tintin himself was an investigative journalist who repeatedly wound up following along bigger stories, though not specifically because he was an adventure seeker.
The film instead takes these elements of Herge and cranks the volume up to eleven, closer in style to Indiana Jones than the original Tintin. But the caveat to this information is this: it works absolutely perfectly. Absolutely. And perfectly.
Really, it shouldn’t be a grand surprise that Tintin is as great as it is. If you look at the team that produced the film, it’s all there: Joe Cornish’s sense of dialogue is sharp, with lines clearly taken from the book when needed and all kept in the spirit of the characters; Edgar Wright’s sense of pacing keeps the movie flowing without any lulls; Steven Moffat’s ability to twist a tale around mysteries, with sufficient pay-off — and that’s just the script! Peter Jackson’s ability to tell grand tales of adventure encompasses the film’s epic scope, and Steven Spielberg’s talent of bringing adventure to a personal level keeps you at eye level with Tintin and Haddock at all times. If there was ever a better crew to assemble to tell the tale of such a timeless character, you couldn’t have a better behind-the-scenes team.
The animation for the film is absolutely incredible as well. The CGI models used as stand-ins for real people, while still being performed b actual actors, expertly brings Herge’s characters to life in a new and brilliant way (with Herge himself getting an excellent little tribute/cameo in the film). The locales are tremendous, the film itself looking fairly more realistic at times than some CGI in live-action films can look. Truth be told, there are portions and elements of the film that absolutely breathe life from every pore to such a ridiculous extent, it becomes easy to get lost in the scenery and minutiae at several points in the film (the clothes, for example, when viewed up close in scenes, look breathtakingly realistic, as if you could actually touch the individual fabrics making them up). The CGI aspect also leads to one of the most impressive chase sequences you’re likely to see in any film this year which, entirely one singular shot and magnificently engrossing.
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On top of that, the cast is absolutely on point at all times. Jamie Bell’s Tintin stays true to the character’s intrepid sensibilities, perfectly exhuming the characteristics of Tintin that both make him a fine adventurer as well as a detective and journalist. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost offer up scene stealing performances as the Thompsons, and a better duo to play the identical coppers you couldn’t conceivably assemble, as Frost and Pegg have proven time and time again that they play well against each other, with Tintin adding another fine example to that resume’. Even Daniel Craig’s ramped up Sakharine makes for a delightful villain, and while the changes to his character are rather monumental to the original character (who was not only not the villain, but only appeared for a small portion of the book) Craig absolutely owns the performance.
Of course, the one performance that most likely every viewer of the film will take home with them is that of Andy Serkis as Captain Haddock. A frequent collaborator of Peter Jackson as well as the world’s leading CGI actor, Serkis brings Haddock to life in a way that is unmatched by any other character in the film. While the film certainly pays true to all of the various characters it purveys, it is Haddock who is the closest in portrayal to the iconic sea captain — albeit with one small caveat: Tintin‘s Haddock is a bit more of an alcoholic here than he is in the book, to the extent that it almost makes him inadequate, which Tintin is quick to point out to him (and quite rudely, at one point). Even so, though, this only makes Haddock’s eventual triumph at the film that much more powerful, both from the stance of someone who loves the character and to someone who has just been introduced to him for the first time.
Haddock also brings up an interesting element of the film that, truthfully, is one of the best things about it: unlike most films created with a younger audience in mind, it doesn’t pull any punches in it’s portrayal of a heroic character as a rather unimpressive failure. While you do have Tintin at the helm as the non-drinking intelligent example of successful youth, you also have Haddock at the center of the film as well, who imbibes left and right and spends only a small, small, small portion of the film sober, which in turn is used as a punchline for a separate joke entirely. It’s in this that Tintin actually achieves the long discussed and frequently aggrandized element of “all ages” storytelling without compromising integrity for one audience or the other that comics of today fight to achieve. Even with keeping one of its leads as a drunkard, Secret of the Unicorn the book achieved all ages status in 1943, and Tintin achieves all ages status again in 2011.
Ultimately, that’s the best thing you could have in a Tintin film. All “accuracy this” and “true adaptation that” aside, Tintin is a fantastically fun film for everyone. The particular audience I saw the film had an uproariously positive reaction, and I was right there in the center of it clapping, laughing along and glued to my seat. This is a story that I’d read before, re-read in the past and re-read again recently in anticipation of the film, and still everything feels new and fresh as it did the first time I read any Tintin book, even with forgetting about all the new plot elements and scenery. Tintin is the movie that Tintin has always deserved, and fits perfectly well to the modern cinema goer. If Tintin somehow isn’t a runaway holiday success, I will be infinitely perplexed.
So, no — this isn’t a straight adaptation of the books. Not all that close, either; you won’t find any epic waterfall/bike ride chase sequences through Arabia in any Tintin books (although this is where Spielberg brings his Indiana Jones past to the forefront, quite obviously). If anything, this movie could’ve been called Uncharted: The Secret of the Unicorn and I would have accepted it all the same. However, where Tintin succeeds it keeping a lot of the original spirit of the book alive and well; it’s light hearted, full of adventure, and the characters (outside of Haddock’s ramped-up alcoholism) all speak true their original timeless machinations.
I’ve never been so happy with an adaptation that is, for all intents and purposes, logistically disloyal, yet I couldn’t care in the slightest. Tintin is everything I had hoped it would be and more, and I eagerly anticipate future sequels, DVD releases and perhaps some more people that I know finally reading the books. According to trivia on IMDb, Herge had been quoted as saying he thought Spielberg was the only person who could ever do Tintin justice. Truer words, Herge. Truer words.
