The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn: Movie Review

Rarely does a film wow us in all levels and in each expectation we have. "The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn" is a prime example of grabbing that elite status. It is a film that not only amazes us with its stunning visuals, huge and complicated set-pieces and one of the best (if not the best) motion-capture effort we have seen yet but it also completes the whole experience with an adventure fraught with detail-accurate representations of the Hergé's characters, non-stop action and humorous scenes. This is one film worthy of Hergé's vision and one also worthy of Spielberg's almost three decade wait for a big screen adaptation.

Tintin (Jamie Bell) is roaming around a outdoor town bazaar when he decides to buy a model ship named The Unicorn. The model ship quickly attracts the attention of two men, one an American named Barnaby and one who introduces himself as Ivan Ivanovitch Sakharine (Daniel Craig), who both offer to buy the model for huge sums of money. Tintin refuses to sell the ship to both and takes it home where it is broken by Snowy. Tintin doesn't notice that a parchment of paper has fallen from the mast. Remembering the two men who approached him earlier, Tintin decides to investigate further about The Unicorn and its mysterious history and why everyone else is so interested in a toy model.

Honestly speaking, we cannot single out a feature where "The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn" did not excel. In fact, the film is a tour-de-force bringing a balance of the comical and the realistic, of action and humor and the best visuals we have seen yet in a film (in our opinion, this even beats "Avatar" handily). It is even scary at times seeing Tintin and the other characters so vividly and photo-realistically recreated in 3D. You know that some features are too exaggerated to be a normal person but the visuals are done so well that characters turn-out more life-like than just animated characters. While the film does start slowly, it compensates this with a non-stop thrill ride after the first 15 minutes or so. And speaking of action, the best thing about them are the complex and interconnected nature of sequences in a single scene which accurately captures what happens on Tintin comics. "The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn" is the best film we have seen all year. It is a perfect ode to old fans of Tintin and it will surely make lots of new ones as well. Even better, it contains all the elements of what makes a film fun and it does these all too well.

Rating: 5 reels





Why you should watch it:
- visually speaking, this is the best we have ever seen
- the original characters are accurately depicted
- the movie is perfect in all aspects

Why you shouldn't watch it:
- kids may find the story a little too complicated


2 Comments

Comments

  1. lalo ko tuloy gusto panoorin :)
    Good review!

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  2. The film really is a breakthrough in motion capture. I also think the best comic-strip adaptation to date.

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