Monday, December 5, 2011

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn

My review : The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn



“The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn” is one of the finest motion capture animation movie yet . It is made with Steven Spielberg at its helm is no surprise for he is master in using the latest technology to the hilt for the benefit of his movies.

As a person not exposed to the “Tintin” series of comic novels in his younger age I went into the theatres with an open mind , excitation of watching a movie in 3D boosted by very nice things written & told about the movie in the media as well as word of mouth.

The most striking & prominent thing that comes to once mind is that watching the first sequence only made one go speechless about the technical wizardry of the creators. One has not come across such an awesomely made animation in 3D so far. Except for the comic book like humans everything else look better than the natural ambiences.

The house , books , birds , deserts, ocean , river , ship , palaces , ....all are done with such minute precision & flavour that one can’t but appreciate the hard work of all those involved in its creation.

When it comes to the movie per se since I was naive to the “Tintin” series of comics , I found the story & the happenings on screen a bit childish. The story of a young journalist trying to solve the secret of the Unicorn , a ship which carried loads of treasure onboard which got sunk when pirates attacked it in one of its voyages with the help of the descendent of the captain of the original ship. That there is another person , Ivan Sakharine , who is supposedly descendant of the chief pirate who attacked the ship in the past , is also on the pursuit of the treasure that got lost along with the ship. The ensuing cat & mouse game is the story.

Story wise there is nothing much to expect considering it is based on a comic book catering to the age group of 3 to 15. May be the story might have enthralled those who are familiar with the comics when they were younger & might have given them the chance to relive those days of innocence & liveliness . But those who are not familiar with the comic series it won’t affect much , myself being one such.

Technically as said earlier the movie is top class. It will be the bench mark for all other live animation movies to follow to emulate. The technical team at Weta Digital should get all the credits that are due for them.

John Williams background score is good aids in transforming the viewers to the comic book world.

On the whole , “The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn” is an enthralling piece of work best enjoyed in a 3D digital theatre & is worth every penny spent.

Bottomline : For the child in you...

3.5/5

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