For someone pushing 80, Herge’s iconic, quiff-sporting, Belgian manchild-reporter more than holds his own alongside the grab bag of modern blockbuster action stars gracing screens this summer, in Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson’s The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn. Growing up, I was surrounded by Tintin: the complete set of comic volumes in multiple languages, coffee mugs, figurines, stationery – all Tintin – could all be found all over my home. My father was a fan and I inherited his appreciation and adoration for the series.
Spielberg discovered Herge’s world much later in life, after being tipped off by a French review of Raiders of the Lost Ark in ’81, which drew obvious comparisons between the two franchises. After tracking down and falling in love with Tintin, he went on to purchase its film rights. Spielberg did receive Herge’s blessing to adapt the comics into films (Herge being a huge fan of ‘Raiders’), but not much more; the author died a few weeks later. Fast forward almost 30 years later and Spielberg (now armed with fellow fanboy Jackson plus a whole new way of shooting films) has finally honoured the blessing with this wonderful, charming and above alll, faithful adaptation.
The phrase ‘motion capture performance’ usually conjures up horrific images of lifeless dolls who’ve crashed into the uncanny valley via the Polar Express. So it comes as a relief that Weta Digital’s work on Tintin is a milestone for the technology and makes the best case for motion capture yet, proving it the obvious and only choice for respectfully translating Herge’s iconic style. And while ‘real life’ actors Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Simon Pegg and Daniel Craig are no doubt ‘acting’ in Tintin, we’re never sitting there thinking ‘there’s Daniel Craig, acting’. Instead, it’s Herge’s characters, in all of their stylised, big nosed, beady eyed glory, with dashes of realistic flourishes (hair fibres, skin blemishes) thrown in here and there that remind us there is very much a pulse behind the quiff.
Based on three of the original works – The Crab with the Golden Claws (1941), The Secret of the Unicorn (1943), and Red Rackham’s Treasure (1944) – the action starts immediately with our heroes’ MacGuffin being introduced in the opening scene in the form of a model ship, the titular ‘Unicorn’. What follows is an inter-continental race for the prize, with Tintin (Bell) and his faithful white fox terrier, Snowy, joining forces with lovable drunkard Captain Haddock (Serkis) to track down an ancient Haddock family treasure – which coincidentally, happens to be the apple of not-so-nice-guy Sakharine’s (Craig) eye. Gorgeous set pieces, continent hopping and daring chases obviously follow suit. And while it might sound cliche-ridden or very similar to the plot of one Spielberg’s famous archaeologist’s outings, it is because Tintin was, ironically andunknowingly to its director, the blueprint for Indy’s cinematic conquests.
Much like its literary counterpart, the beauty of Tintin’s appeal lies in the fact that it doesn’t really matter when or where it is set: it’s timeless. Tintin purists (or Tintinologists) will insist that history and geography have very much dictated the direction and undertones of Herge’s original text, but the tight, thrilling and hilarious script by Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish highlights that pure adventure was and always will be at the core of Tintin’s universal appeal. Any complaints about the lack of ‘female’ characters in the film – blame the source. Tintin, unlike Spielberg’s other relic-hunting adventurer, is no womaniser. In fact, he has zero relatives and even less the amount of romantic interactions with members of the opposite sex, whom scarcely pop up throughout the 24 volumes. A sexed up Tintin would be more sacrilegious than a sober Haddock, or a competent Thomson and Thompson.
Like the Tintin shop’s business card gracing my kitchen’s noticeboard proclaims, Spielberg’s ‘Tintin’ is ‘for all young people, from 7 to 77.’
Words by Angus Truskett.
