
"The Adventures of Tintin" in 3D!
The 2011 story of “The Secret of the Unicorn” is based of 3 stories by Hergé during 1940 – 1943, “The Crab with the Golden Claws”, “The Secret of the Unicorn” and “Red Rackham’s Treasure”. I have had a feeling that the stories will be a cocktail of the series while watching the trailer and when watching it on the big screen earlier today, it just goes as I thought. Nevertheless, the blend is quite good I have to say, and new sparks are created in the reaction. (Spoilers Alert)

Tintin and Snowy in comics and cartoon
“Tintin” (2011) is a 3D movie, which means the small dotted eyes of Tintin and Snowy in comic and cartoon, as well the circle eyes of Captain Haddock are gone and replaced by an eye with eyelids, eyeballs, iris, and so on… Of course as a movie based on a famous series, director and producers of the movie pay tribute to the original – They started the movie first in 2D (which is fun to watch, the clip recapped all my childhood memory), then a street comic drawing scene with an artist drawing comic face for the 3D Tintin. One important thing is the artist is actually Hergé!

Herge's portrait in Tintin in Congo
The movie started just like the original comic, but unlike the original, Tintin and Captain Haddock do not know each other in the beginning, so the Unicorn which Tintin purchased in the junk market is something for himself instead of a present for the Captain. The other 2 men who fight for the model are just like the 2 guys in the comic book, yet they have been changed from the inside out. In the original story, Daniel Craig’s role- Mr. Sakharine is just a poor old sidekick who lost his model ship after being assaulted by the villains, but he turned into someone greater than he could have imagined. In order to focus on the characters, the producers deducted quite a number of people from the original including the bad, yet funny Bird brothers.

Mr. Sakharine:「I used to be a poor victim...」
For the part when Tintin is kidnapped and sail onboard with Karaboudjan until Tintin and Captain reached Bagghar, it is more or less the same as what happened in “The Crab with the Golden Claws”. Yet it mixes the Captain’s story of how his ancestor fought against the evil pirate – Red Rackham. The 3D animation, with the help of voiceover, music, and so on, make Sir Francis Haddock’s duel with Red Rackham a very exciting part of the movie.

Mr. Salaad
In “The Crab with The Golden Claws”, there is a character named “Omar Ben Salaad”, mastermind of the opium trafficker. Yet he is turned into a music lover and crafts collector, the one who own the third and last Unicorn in the movie. The brilliant team in Hollywood wrote and created the action scenes which take place in Bagghar, and I have to say the scenes are quite exciting and fun.
Yet, after Tintin and his friends go back to Europe, the mechanic war between Captain and Mr. Sakharine is simply too unrealistic to be “Tintin”. No doubt that Tintin, Captain and Snowy walked into dangers in their adventures in the comic books but the stories are realistic; The heavy machine battle is simply too Sci-fic to be true. No doubt the set is the climax of the movie, but I have to say it turned the movie from great to good.

下一集仍然是海底冒險嗎?
Originally I thought that the movie would end when the three scrolls overlap just like the original, it was simply not the case. The part where Captain and Tintin found Red Rackham’s treasure in Marlinspike Hall’s cellars was brought to “The Secret of the Unicorn”. So will there be no underwater adventure? Not really, as Tintin finds a map inside the globe and says more treasure are waiting for them ahead. It seems that the next episode will be Red Rackham’s Treasure anyway! Can’t wait to let Captain Haddock meets Professor Calculus, aka Mr. A-Little-Bit-Hard-of-Hearing.

http://uituit.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/reviewing-the-adventures-of-tintin-the-3d-movie-by-a-tintin-fan/