Film Review - The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn

Cards on the table, I am not a fan of this "realistic" kind of animation, but only when it comes to the animation of humans. Pixar's cartoony characters are fine. How To Train Your Dragon? No problem. Shrek, A Christmas Carol, Beowulf, Polar Express- all of them creep me out. The realistic faces with the unnatural animation is just horrid. What made Avatar such a revelation was that it got this right. After seeing the trailer for Tintin, however, I was again left unimpressed.
However, it's not as much of an issue in the actual film as I'd suspected. Andy Serkis works his magic again on Captain Haddock, and Daniel Craig's character is similarly effective. Ironically, the most problematic character is Tintin. Jamie Bell is actually rather good, his voicing performance giving Tintin a certain amount of character that's pretty much absent from the script alone. However, his line of focus is out and at times he's staring oddly into space and it gets very off-putting.
But enough of that, the film itself is a rather fun little romp, combining the thrills of Indiana Jones with Pirates of the Caribbean, but directed with a flair from Steven Spielberg as we've never seen before. We've had glimpses in the jeep dinosaur-hunt scene of The Lost World, and the early car scene in War of the Worlds, but here, without the constraints of the real world, the animation allows for some effective action scenes, and some hugely imaginative dissolves.
Unfortunately, however, it all falls rather flat. I never found myself on the edge of my seat, nor invested- certainly not emotionally- and the humour was rather embarrassing (Pegg & Frost, I'm looking at you).
If you fancy it, see it. I'm sure you'll enjoy it- don't let the scars of the hideous Indy 4 put you off; Spielberg has definitely got his spectacle groove back. Just don't expect too much.