When I say Go!, you throw the dog at them and run like hell. I’ve packed him full of explosives and I never liked him anyways.
The Adventures of Tintin (2011) is an interesting little bit of fluff that quickly fades away. It’s an animated film in the style of Gollum from Peter Jackson’s Lord Of The Rings series, with the characters’ movements based on motion capture technology, and so it lends a certain, almost creepy verisimilitude to the action.
And this is an action film. Set in the 1930s, Tintin is a young French journalist who, in the midst of decorating his office, decides a model of a sailing ship might be just the thing. He procures just such a model in a flea market in a nearby street of Paris, barely ahead of another determined buyer, and refuses a superior offer. That night, his home is invaded by a man shot in the back, his model ship disappears, and soon enough Tintin is taken prisoner himself, finding himself on a tramp steamer heading … somewhere.
But taking prisoner is not the same as keeping prisoner, for Tintin and his little dog, Snowy, are resourceful protagonists – and the ship’s captain is a drunkard, a chore for the crew to manage, yet required by Tintin’s captor. Soon enough, Tintin and Snowy escape and make their way to the shores of Africa, all the while wondering what their little model ship has to do with their captivity.
And on it goes. There’s no doubt that Tintin is an entertainingly resourceful young man, escaping and frustrating the antagonists, and the movie is a colorful, exciting fantasy, but the problem lies with the story. Let’s compare this to the acknowledged masterpiece of the genre: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). In both films, the antagonists have few, if any, redeeming characteristics. The difference, though, is in the situations in which Professor Jones finds himself.
No. Fans of the film will know I just misstated Jones’ characteristic contretemps. Indiana Jones doesn’t have situations happen to him, he seeks them out. And while Tintin’s more reactive role is mitigated by his aggressive, intelligent responses, the situations themselves differ in one key aspect:
Morality. Or ethics, if you prefer.
Remember how we meet Indiana Jones? He’s taking an ancient artifact from a temple. Is this research or theft? It turns out that Professor Jones has quite the checkered past and, more importantly, present: a former and resentful lover, Marion, many years his junior, who he now meets in diminished circumstances, but full of her own brand of cleverness; his desperate search for Marion after her kidnapping, ending in her death by the explosion of the car Jones shoots; his search for the Ark, undertaken through subterfuge; the question of whether he should use the bazooka on the Ark; & etc. All of these situations, along with being fun and exciting, have a serious moral dimension to them, a dimension that includes consequences. That mad, frantic dash, sans artifact, through the jungle, pursued by a tribe spitting poison darts at him?
That’s consequences.
Tintin’s adventures may be equally exciting, but there’s no moral cloudiness concerning his actions; he makes the Right Choice, easily, every time. And that takes the tension and memorability plumb out of this movie, because those questions of morality, of predicting which decision a character will make, and how the consequences will affect their future, is the reason most audience members watch and talk about a movie.
It’s too bad that Tintin never faces tough moral situations, even making bad decisions, because many of the other elements of a really good film are present: colorful characters, good effects, conflict. The only other lack is that I don’t particularly care for is a goal that is purely wealth, even if it’s not Tintin’s goal, as he’s just along for the ride. Jones drew the audience in by presenting the dream of an archaeologist: the finding of an ancient artifact, of even the ancient artifact. The relentless search for wealth is often an end in itself, both in stories and in real life; Jones’ search, and the psychological implications, was far more interesting. Now, if the storytellers had emphasized Tintin’s journalistic profession more, they could have made that quite engaging, but, sadly, that was nothing more than a tag they hung off his shirt: I’m a journalist, see the tag?! So far as I could tell, he did precious little journalism, and certainly didn’t put himself out to do so.
And so this is another movie that reaches its potential, that potential sadly defined by a script with superficial attraction, but, in the end, fairly hollow.
