Tintin's dog deserves most of that treasure

The Adventures of Tintin (DVD/Blu-Ray) - Dir. Steven Spielberg. Starring Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Daniel Craig.

Near-perfect animated adventure film about a mystery-solving dog and the human who takes all the credit.

After buying an antique model ship on a whim, young reporter Tintin (Jamie Bell) is caught up in a dangerous globe-spanning hunt for lost treasure where his only allies are his dog Snowy and the drunken Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis, for once given a chance to play an actual human being).

In tribute to the original comic books, The Adventures of Tintin's animation style is a slightly odd combination of the caricatured faces of typical cartoons and the hyper-realistic surfaces of something like 2007's Beowulf. The images are virtually photorealistic until the camera gets close enough to show that everyone's noses are the size and shape of billiard balls.

Even with the glassy dead eyes of past CGI characters a forgotten memory in the shadow of Tintin's impressive technology, you might wonder why they didn't simply go all the way and make a live action film. But Spielberg's reasoning becomes clear soon enough; the movie relies heavily on spectacular, sprawling action sequences that no human (much less canine) actor and no camera of this earth could pull off. There's a swordfight between two harbor cranes, a massive battle atop a pirate ship hanging off of another ship, and, most impressively, a chase through streets and buildings from one end of a Moroccan city to the other done in one unbroken shot.

The Adventures of Tintin comes in the clear tradition of Indiana Jones, and indeed, in many ways it's what Indiana Jones 4: George Lucas Ruins Everything Again should have been. It's a more manic, colorful, impossibly action-packed Indiana Jones, overlying a gentle humor and a wide-eyed sense of wonder that confirms it's a Tintin adventure at heart. It's as true to its source as a modern-day blockbuster adaptation could ever have been.

There are two real flaws, the most glaring of which is the film's flat ending. Among the flurry of explosive action setpieces that make up Tintin's second half, the climax and its aftermath practically come and go unnoticed. The showdown at a treasure-packed shipwreck that the story seems to promise never comes, leaving a suspicious feeling that it was cut at the last moment.

But if that was the case, it must have been because the filmmakers realized what the audience will realize: that by this point, the movie is beginning to drag a bit. It's an issue that arises more from overstimulation and burnout than from the usual causes of boredom, but it's nevertheless another flaw in the film.

These issues keep a great movie from being a brilliant one. Even so, The Adventures of Tintin's undeniable appeal should cross all borders of age and taste.

Rated PG for only a little murder.
4 out of 5