'Tintin' Shows its Age Despite Dream Team

The old-school adventure of Tintin evokes the kind of nostalgia one has for “The Hardy Boys” series. Sure, both are both cheesy and offer predictable endings, but an innocent sense of adventure keeps both series alive.

With one look at the list of well-known directors, producers, and writers on board with “The Adventures of Tintin”—including Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, Steven Moffat and Edgar Wright—the last thing someone would expect to come from this collaboration would be the slightly disappointing “Tintin.” Admittedly, if any group of filmmakers could successfully adapt a dated cartoon about a teenage sleuth and his dog into a relevant and engaging film, it would most certainly have been this one. While “Tintin” did not disappoint as an approachable family film, this team of talent could have explored more exciting avenues than just remaking a classic comic.

The eponymous comic on which “Tintin” is based tells the story of young Belgian reporter Tintin, who battles with caricature portrayals of evil such as an artifact-smuggling ring in the Amazon and a revenge-seeking descendent of a slain pirate. The series—written by Georges Remi in the 1940s and 50s—portrays Tintin as a sort of superhero journalist who always prevails in the face of villainy.

The comic “Tintin” is clearly a product of the Cold War era. It is good guys versus bad guys, with a new mystery around every corner. It’s high adventure, and even higher stakes; it’s the same old story we’ve heard again and again in literature and film.

Similar stories such as “Nancy Drew” and “The Boxcar Children” have constructed a genre of stories centered around young teen sleuths. However, there is probably a good reason these franchises have not produced well-made film adaptations: they are dated beyond belief. When Tintin yells, “Great snakes!” at the discovery of a clue or when he escapes from the “Sultan’s palace,” the material shows its age as a relic of the ’40s and ’50s.  When compared to the modernity of the film’s photorealistic animation values in such illustrations as hair and skin textures to the vivid rendering of the ocean, there is a disconnect that undermines the naïve, simple honesty of the original series.  Thus, it is hard to experience the earnest, cartoon quality of the original comics when the directors are determined to make “Tintin” as visually realistic as possible.

“Tintin” could have evolved from merely an expensive kids’ film into a dynamic adventure movie in the style of “Indiana Jones” if the directors and writers had committed to developing the characters’ personalities. Instead, they spend time on characters that are two-dimensional despite their 3D rendering. Two prime examples are Thomson and Thompson, two bumbling detectives whose purpose is only to provide the film with questionably necessary slapstick comedy.

Ultimately, “Tintin” remains faithful to the comics in message, and that devotion is what can sell the movie to its nostalgic fans. It retains a comforting, innocent sense of adventure that is hard to find in a year of movies with convoluted motives and gritty realism. This naïveté is one of the movie’s strongest points, but also one of its faults. It does not stray far from the old story structure viewers have seen again and again, and the movie predictably telegraphs the ending almost from the second or third scene. However, enjoying the comic “Tintin” is an exercise in suspension of disbelief, and that is much harder when one is presented with such an uncannily life-like rendering of the essentially cartoonish quality of its characters.

—Staff writer Bryan S. Erickson can be reached at berickson@college.harvard.edu.