review by Marcin Wichary
The Adventures of Tintin 2011
Watched Jan 02, 2012
Marcin Wichary’s review:
This is a movie of uncanny valleys made. Not just the one you’d expect – people and animals looking half-dead and quarter-robotic – but also plot, characterization, humour… Everything was a bit off. As a result, I never connected with The adventures of Tintin. I felt the movie just took off without me, with forced, unreal momentum not unlike its later crane fight scene. Perhaps knowing Tintin and his adventures (which I didn’t) was a prerequisite, but then I scrutinized the poster afterwards and no, nary a mention of that.
There’s some great visual adventurousness here, especially in the second half – and for Spielberg’s first animated movie, he’s showing admirable restraint and mastery of the cameras, even those of virtual descent. We had some great discussion among friends afterwards about the difficulties of translating books to movies, so at least we got that out of it. But as a whole, the film could’ve been much better – and the only good thing I can say about the ending was that it was at least better than A.I.’s.
Wow, a bit more critical than I even recall from our discussion. I didn't think the film exhibited issues of the uncanny valley almost at all—especially compared to attempts from previous years. Even the water I felt was convincingly accurate.
Also, I wish I could write as well as you can.
I agree it was better, but I noticed uncanniness a number of times – I think especially the secondary characters were subject to it. And I know it’s ultimately a lame complaint to be made on my part – the only way out is through, in the end. We can only get better at it by doing it. At some point it’ll snuck up on us.
I have to admit I enjoyed talking/thinking of this movie more than watching it (the first half specifically was a bit tough to sit through). I remember you mentioning it was performance capture. I know Pixar doesn’t do that and animates by hand. Would love to hear a panel discussing pros and cons of both approaches.
Also, Roger Ebert, as always, put things into perspective for me. “How can any thinking person want to see one Chipmunks movie, let alone three?” I love that guy.
rad review, I was amping keen to see this, now I'm not so sure. I also agree that it would be interesting to discuss pros and cons of performance capture vs freehand animation.
To be fair, I think most people like the movie more than I do. :·)
Its worth watching - visually its a marvelous translation of the style from flat art into 3-d.
But the film is essentially strung together action set pieces and the cartoonishness of the characterizations makes it hard to feel like much is at stake - its true to the books but not enough to hold a feature.
I talked to someone who worked on the production and apparently Spielberg directed it over the phone (he only came to NZ near the end when there was pressure to push things through).
Feels a bit like that - lots of room for the animators to have a great time and get carried away, nobody to make sure there is a good shape to the overall story.
Got to admit I am still hoping they will do the 'Destination Moon' series in spite of this :)
It really is an odd experience watching this film. There is clearly so much care and love put in to it's creation, and yet it's just so 'meh'. My gut feeling is that the uncanny valley is not the issue here, that there's a larger gestalty nothingness that looms over this film.
As my girlfriend and I were leaving the cinema she remarked with great relief 'oh thank god, I thought we were going to have to follow them on ANOTHER epic adventure at the end there...'
Great comments! There’s probably a name for when you expend a lot of effort on an already doomed project.
“Gestalty nothingness.” Brilliant. :·) I meant uncanny valley in a very broad sense, though. I felt there was something off not just with characters/animation, but also story, pacing, etc.