Steven Spielberg. Peter Jackson. Steven Moffat. Edgar Wright. The Avatar FX people. Beloved classic The Adventures of Tintin. What could possibly go wrong?
Since my familiarity with Tintin and Hergé isn’t what it could be, I asked a friend of mine for a fan impression, and he was unthrilled: “It looks NOTHING like the original….Tintin is beautifully two-dimensional—it’s renowned for its crisp, clean drawing style and storytelling….gonna be a lot of pissed off Tintin fans when it’s released, I can tell you now.”
The trailer gives the impression of massive resources and a great leap forward for computer animation, with the brief glance of a human face calling to mind the just-released video game L.A. Noire. But are we looking for the same thing in a movie as we are in a video game? And what does massively expensive 3D animation have to do with The Adventures of Tintin? One hopes the complete movie answers that question satisfactorily, because it’s better to have good movies than bad movies. And, for their sake, I hope this doesn’t upset Tintin fans too much.
Danny Bowes is a playwright, filmmaker and blogger. He is also a contributor to nytheatre.com and Premiere.com.
