I Watch Films: The Adventures Of Tintin

The Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn

My nephew has got big into the Tintin books so we decided to watch the mo-cap CGI film from 2011. It was fun! This being the second time I’d seen it I was able to see a few of the fun references to the book adventures.

But for the novices; Tintin, a reporter in [London|Brussels|Antwerp] in the 1930s buys a model ship in the flea market. Two other people try to buy it immediately but he refuses. Taking it home it is damaged by his dog, Snowy, and something falls out the mast and disappears behind the dresser. Tintin decides to try and find out more at [The British Library|Bibliothèque royale de Belgique|Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België]. The ship is the Unicorn, captained by Sir Francis Haddock and famously lost to pirates and rumoured to have been carrying treasure.

Meanwhile his flat is robbed and the model boat stolen. He finds the parchment from the ship after Snowy points it out to him, but it’s stolen by a pickpocket. The goods news is the police are on the case, the bad news is that it’s Thomson and Thompson, incompetent detectives. One of the attempted buyers is killed (Tintin calls out to the [Landlady|Concierge] that a man’s been shot on the doorstep and she replies “Not again!”). He goes to Marlinspike Hall (the Haddock family home) and meets Sakharine, the other attempted buyer, who has another model.

After some shenanigans Sakharine and his goons kidnap Tintin and put him on their ship. The captain is Captain Haddock, descendant of Sir Francis Haddock, kept drunk in his cabin. He and Tintin manage to escape and make their way to Bagghar in Morocco where the Emir has the third model ship. They eventually confront Sakharine and his crew when they return to [England|Belgium] and discover the secret of the Unicorn.

It was made during the great wave of 3-D films and many of the action sequences are clearly designed for it, taking advantage of CGI to swoop through the scene, following vehicles and characters, to pick them up again as our point of view rushes around obstacles. It’s fun and funny and looks good.

Watch This: Fun family pulp adventure
Don’t Watch This: Photo-realistic Tintin shooting people with photo-realistic period-appropriate guns is not that fun, nor family friendly