Movies

Rip-roaring adventure? Tick. Ground-breaking animation? Tick. Cute CGI dog? Tick. The Adventures of Tintin covers every base and then some, delivering that rare cinematic package: a movie for all ages.

Directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by Peter Jackson, Tintin is an inspired collaboration with rich source material to draw upon. Belgian artist Herge's comic books about the adventures of a strawberry-blonde-haired, upturned-fringed journalist have sold more than 200 million copies worldwide, and have been translated into no less than 50 different languages.

This film adaptation pools together three of the original stories. Tintin (Jamie Bell), along with his sidekick pooch Snowy, buys a model of an old sailing ship on the cheap, but it's not long before he realises he's found something far more valuable than it seems.

An evil man named Sakharine (Daniel Craig) kidnaps Tintin and takes him out to sea, where Tintin plots an escape with drunken prisoner Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis). And so begins an epic, globe-trotting treasure hunt and battle against evil.

Spielberg sprinkles movie magic all over this film with child-like glee, harking back to old-fashioned ripping yarns grounded in great plots and characters, like Spielberg's own Indiana Jones movies.

But it's not just a nostalgia piece. Tintin is a thoroughly modern, bowl 'em over spectacle with all the bells and whistles modern audiences expect. The Moroccan sequence in the latter half rates up there as one of the best animated sequences of all time, and it's a must-see in 3D.

Any concerns about motion-capture animation's ability to render photo-realistic human beings' faces are left behind; Tintin's eyes don't look hollowed out, Captain Haddock's face is delightfully blemished, his bulbous nose and squinty eyes expressive and idiosyncratic.

The only downside is that those less familiar with the Tintin legacy won't get an explanation of his early years or how he met Snowy. A minor quibble, but one that may be addressed in the already in-progress sequels.