Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin does exactly what it promises to on the tin. It’s a rollicking, world-spanning adventure that does a respectable job of bringing Hergé’s beloved boy reporter to the big screen.

The Belgian comic writer and artist’s creation inspires cultish adoration among devotees, but Spielberg and his producer Peter Jackson are both big fans themselves. In its best moments, the film captures the kinetic feel of Hergé’s original art in its motion-capture animation and the derring-do of his stories in its script.

The Adventures of Tintin weaves together stories from three of Herge’s comics: The Crab with the Golden Claws, The Secret of the Unicorn, and Red Rackham’s Treasure. Resourceful young reporter Tintin finds himself drawn into a search for some 17th century treasure after he buys an antique model ship at a market.

After his purchase attracts the attention of a villainous treasure hunter called Sakharine, Tintin discovers that the mast of the replica ship conceals a parchment with a clue to the location of the long lost booty. Nearly two hours of boy’s own adventure follows.

In the hands of Jackson’s visual effects company, Weta Digital, The Adventures of Tintin is a technical marvel. Whereas earlier performance capture movies like Beowulf and The Polar Express were haunted by characters with listless eyes and wax skin textures, the more stylised character animations in Tintin work well for the most part.

Occasionally, something feels a little off in the textures of Captain Haddock’s skins or in Tintin’s eyes, but Weta’s animation work navigates most of the dreaded uncanny valley with great success. Part of the credit must go to the actors, especially Andy Serkis as the always pickled Captain Haddock.

Serkis, already seen as the world’s leading performance capture actor for his work in The Lord of the Rings, King Kong and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, turns in another memorable performance as the coarse old souse with an inventive string of curses and insults at his disposal.

tintin-2 — Snowy – the smartest dog in the room

Nick Frost and Simon Pegg, the British comic actors who have paired in films such as Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, do a neat job of bringing the bungling detective duo Thompson and Thomson to life. Daniel Craig, better known as a sombre antihero, enjoys hamming it up as Sakharine. Snowy, Tintin’s dog, is one of the smartest and most charming animated mutts we’ve seen in animated film for a while.

Tintin himself is the weak link here. His name literally means “nothing” and Hergé conceptualised him as a blank slate through which the reader could project himself into the comics. But this idea doesn’t really translate to film, where we’re primed to look for a charismatic hero like Indiana Jones to guide the journey. He is a complete non-entity, overpowered by the strength of his supporting cast.

The real magic of the film lies in the vibrant backdrops, which are crammed with clever little details and pay tribute to the strong lines that define Herge’s ligne claire style. It is a bustling world grounded by believable physics, even when the craziest things are happening to Tintin. The action sequences are all cleverly put together, enjoyable for their madcap sense of motion.

The Adventures of Tintin (via YouTube):

The first half of Tintin is better than the second, thanks to a more leisurely pace where story is given time to unfold and character some space to breathe. By the final act, the film has devolved into a sequence of episodic set pieces that are all fantastic in their own right but lack cohesion as a whole.

Despite Tintin’s shortcomings, it’s great to see Spielberg back on form with an adventure film after misfiring so badly with the last Indiana Jones film. It’s a film that takes the director back to his roots in blockbuster adventure films while allowing him to break new ground by making his first ever animated feature. The Adventures of Tintin is easy to recommend as a holiday matinee film. — Lance Harris, TechCentral