The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn

Steven Spielberg: The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (US/NZ 2011) with Jamie Bell as the model for the digitally animated Tintin.

Tintin seikkailut: Yksisarvisen salaisuus / Tintins äventyr: Enhörningens hemlighet.
    US / NZ © 2011 Paramount Pictures. P: Peter Jackson, Kathleen Kennedy, Steven Spielberg.
    D: Steven Spielberg. SC: Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish – based on the comic book series The Adventures of Tintin by Hergé. DP: Janusz Kaminski. AD: Andrew L. Jones. Cost: Lesley Burkes-Harding. Makeup: Tegan Taylor. Visual FX (Weta Digital): Matt Aitken, Scott E. Anderson. AN dept: huge. M: John Williams. "Ah! Je veux vivre" (Charles Gounod) – Bianca Castafiore's aria. S: Brent Burge, Chris Ward. ED: Michael Kahn. Casting: Scot Boland, Victoria Burrows, Jina Jay.
    Models and voice talent for the digitally animated characters: Jamie Bell (Tintin), Andy Serkis (Captain Haddock), Daniel Craig (Ivanovich Sakharine / Red Rackham), Simon Pegg (Inspector Thompson), Nick Frost (Inspector Thomson), Gad Elmaleh (Sheik Omar Ben Salaad), Kim Stengel (Bianca Castafiore), Enn Reitel (Mr. Crabtree / Nestor), Toby Jones (Aristides Silk, the pickpocket), Tony Curran (Ltn. Delacourt).
    99 min.
    Released in Finland by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Finland in a Finnish-dubbed version and an original version with Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Marko Hartama / Saliven Gustavson.
    2K DCP in XpanD 3D viewed at Tennispalatsi 1, Helsinki (weekend of Finnish premiere), 5 Nov 2011.

Technical specs from IMDb: Camera: Canon 5D H4.1, Panavision Cameras and Lenses – Laboratory: DeLuxe – Original format: Digital – Cinematographic process: Digital Intermediate (2K) (master format), Digital (source format) – Printed film format: 35 mm (anamorphic), 70 mm (horizontal) (IMAX DMR blow-up) (dual-strip 3-D) (Kodak Vision 2383), D-Cinema – Aspect ratio: 1.44 : 1 (IMAX 3-D version), 2.35:1.

Reading Tintin comic books belongs to my fondest childhood memories. Four hard-cover albums were published into Finnish in 1961–1962, including the ones that are the most important basis for this movie, Le Secret de la Licorne (1943), and Le Trésor de Rackham le Rouge (1944).

The really big success of Tintin in Finland started only during the 1970s when the rest of the albums were finally translated, too, so as a child in the 1960s reading other Tintin books was an incentive to even to try to read them in French and other languages with the help of a dictionary. I even liked the live-action movie Tintin et le mystère de la Toison d'Or (1961) which caught something of the true Hergé spirit and style: a fairy-tale adventure set in the real world.

A deep bow to Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson for this ambitious experiment with a new kind of animation. The production is first class and will become a deserved success. My favourite sequence is the opening credit sequence with stylized silhouette animation.

Watching the movie I tried to reflect on the secret of the Hergé magic: very limited drawing in the human faces, sometimes almost photorealistic accuracy in the milieux, outlandish fantasy in the adventure plots, eccentric characters, a great sense of humour. The Tintin – Haddock – Milou trio is essential. Tintin is a boy scout. Haddock is a temperamental, cursing, alcoholic captain, but with a healthy sense of self-respect. Milou the dog is small but fearless, and it can sense what others cannot and go where others cannot go.

Wit is of the essence. That essence I tried hard to find in this movie.

The digi-animated Tintin is uncanny, a homunculus like the character played by Haley Joel Osment in A.I. I find this Tintin impossible to relate to, and in the Hergé books Tintin is a tabula rasa, too, only defined by his action. But in this movie I sense something slightly monstrous. This balance of animation and photorealism does not work for me.

No problem with the 3D, but the image is not particularly brilliant or sharp, and the feeling of sunshine that even a battered print of Tintin et le mystère de la Toison d'Or emits is missing. There are, however, splendid new 3D effects in the picture: optical effects seen through glasses and magnifying devices, for instance. There are other subtle inventions in making the depth of space come alive.

A list of the talent of the Finnish voice version is beyond the jump break: 
SUOMENKIELISET ÄÄNET:

TINTTI / SAMUEL HARJANNE
ARCHIBALD HADDOCK / JARMO KOSKI
DUPOND / SANTERI KINNUNEN
DUPONT / JUKKA LAAKSONEN
SAKARIN / ANTTI JAAKOLA
BARNARD / HEIKKI SANKARI
BIANCA CASTAFIORE / JOHANNA RUSANEN-KARTANO
HERRA CRABTREE / MARKKU HUHTAMO
ARISTEIDES SELLISTINEN / TEIJO ELORANTA
SHEIKKI OMAR BEN SALAAD / TIDJAN BA

MUUT ÄÄNET:
PANU VAUHKONEN
TEUVO MATALA
MATTI ONNISMAA
AKU LAITINEN
PETRI HANTTU
JUHANI RAJALIN
TERO KOPONEN
ANTTI LJ PÄÄKKÖNEN
CARL-KRISTIAN RUNDMAN
MIKAEL EKLUND
MARJA PACKALEN
MARKUS BÄCKMAN

DIALOGIN KÄÄNNÖS MARKO HARTAMA / SDI MEDIA
DIALOGIN OHJAUS CARLA RINDELL
ÄÄNITYS KARI STARCK
TUOTANTOKOORDINAATTORI CAROLINA HEINONEN
STUDIO SDI MEDIA A/S, FINNISH BRANCH
TUOTTAJA SDI MEDIA A/S