The Adventures Of Tintin - review

This is the first of several planned Tintin films by Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson and is an amalgamation of three of Herge's stories The Secret of the Unicorn, Red Rackham's Treasure and The Crab with the Golden Claws, but more appropriately it could have been called Tintin And His Attempt To Escape The Uncanny Valley.
There was a lot of debate amongst fans of the books when it was first announced that the film would be produced using motion capture rather than animation.  You can understand its purpose when it encorporates otherworldly or non-human characters into live action films (Na'vi, Gollum, Caesar, etc) but when the style is that close to animation, is there any real benefit?
The answer, unfortunately, is not really.
The main benefit of using mo-cap over voice work is that you can use the actor's whole performance and therefore choose actors whole will bring something to the part, but the likes of Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Jamie Bell are fairly anonymous in their portrayals, adding little more than a star name on the poster.
I don't know if it was Bell's fault, the script or if the character is the same in the comics, but Tintin was almost a non-entity in the film.  He's one dimensional as the sketch he is given at the beginning of the film based on Herge's drawing.  If you aren't familiar with the comics then the only character development we get as an audience is that he's a reporter (of undetermined age) who has a dog called Snowy.   That's it, otherwise he is just there to move the plot from A to B.  As adventurer's go, Indiana Jones he is not.

Rather unsurprisingly, the only one to be as three dimensional as the impressive visuals is Captain Archibald Haddock, thanks to being played by the King of Motion Capture, Mr Andy Serkis.  Although I can't be the only one who thought Haddock shared more than a passing resemblance to producer Peter Jackson.  It may not be as impressive a performance as that of Caesar from ROTPOTA, but Serkis is clearly having a ball as the drunken, boorish Scottish seaman (snigger) who comes to learn that his destiny lies along a different course... but perhaps Serkis was just happy at not having to play Snowy the dog!
Spielberg first became aware of Tintin back in 1982 when film critics compared elements of Raiders of the Lost Ark to the boy reporter's series of adventures, and this film is more in keeping with the tone and feel of Raiders than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Exotic locations, missing treasure and artefacts, non-stop action, and of course, a terrific John Williams score.  The film excels during some stunning action sequences but it's a shame the script doesn't masure in terms of the vision which is disappointing considering it was written by such talented guys as Moffat, Wright & Cornish.
Spielberg demonstrates why he is one of the best directors of all time with a chase sequence through the port of Bacchar that is done in one complete shot and rivals the truck chase in Raiders or the mine cart chase in Temple of Doom for sheer excitement.
With CGI and motion capture, what can be achieved on screen is only limited by imagination, and Spielberg shows how good he is with Haddock vividly recounting the tale of his grandfather and Pirate Red Rackham as it seamlessly switches between flashback and present day.
If the script and characterisation can match the imagination, passion and vision of messers Spielberg and Jackson, then I'm prepared to give Tintin another shot... as long as the sequel doesn't involve aliens!

3 stars

REVIEW: Attack The Block - Aliens in the Hoodies

So is Attack The Block the next film that continues people to shout from the rooftops about how 2011 is the second coming for British cinema? Or is it, as Total Film might describe it using there patented "X film meets Y film" poster quotes, "Eden Lake meets Critters" with a group of happy-slapping hoodies as unlikeable lead characters?
Ultimately, it's a bit of both, and I won't let the fact that I met Joe Cornish last week, who is a lovely man by the way, have any effect on my review!

Kids find an alien after it crashlands on Earth.  So far, so Spielberg but this alien landed in South London and gets its head kicked in by a bunch of hoodies. Rather than Spielberg, Cornish draws more influence from the work of John Carpenter and it plays out like a British sci-fi version of Assault of Precinct 13 as our hoodies fight off a group of pissed off aliens from tearing up their yard (to use the modern parlance of our times).
As a sci-fi horror/thriller it is very effective, building tension and atmosphere and delivering on action but don't go to ATB expecting a hilarious Shaun Of The Dead style comedy as has been marketed.  There is some humour in it but mainly the odd quip to break the tension and usually spoken by the characters of Pest or Brewis.
The film certainly nips along at a fantastic pace, with a running time of 88 minutes it is the perfect antidote to the bum-numbing summer blockbusters like Pirates Of The Caribbean.
The lean running time does create a problems however in how it affects the protagonists.
The movie opens with the audience following Jodie Whittaker's nurse Sam as she walks home from work.  Before she gets there she is mugged by a group of hoodies, and they are interrupted when an alien crashlands into a nearby car and they quickly kill.  The story then follows these kids as they return to their council estate aka "The Block" triumphantly showing off their trophy only for a few dozen of it friends to come and attack them seeking retribution.
The problem which many people have had with the film is that the main characters are unlikeable and unsympathetic, therefore making it difficult to care about their fate when their lives are at stake.  In cinematic terms, they would be considered anti-heroes, but this only really works when the characters go on a journey and you see them change by the end of the film.  The perfect example of this is Phil Connors in Groundhog Day.  The problem with the kids in ATB is that they don't get any real screen time to develop their characters beyond the briefest of sketches, thus preventing me from empathising with them.

The cast were scared to see that Robbie Collin's 1 star review was lurking around the corner

Putting this major flaw aside, it does work as a purely enjoyable thrill ride and there is some interesting social commentary within the film; Moses remarks to Sam that they wouldn't have mugged her if they knew she lived in the block and Sam replies "but it's OK if I don't?!" and what is more dangerous, the aliens outside or the visious drug dealers running the block?
Cornish certainly displays enough filmmaking talent to warrant his name being mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Richard Ayoade, Gareth Edwards and Duncan Jones.  I look forward to the inevitable spoof version At-toy-ck The Block!

3 stars