The Adventures of Tintin (PG)
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This movie is based on a series of Belgian comics which began publication in 1929; more specifically, it's based on a few installments of the series which were all published in the 40s. Anyway, the comics are from before my time, and I can't say with any certainty whether or not I'd ever heard of the character of Tintin before I started hearing about the movie, prior to its release in 2011. Though I know it's been adapted in other forms, over the years... which I'm likewise unsure if I knew about before. I feel like I must have been dimly aware of it, but I could easily confuse the series with any number of other things from around the first half of the 20th century. I should also say I'm not entirely sure when the movie is set, but I'd guess it's more or less meant to be set around the time the stories on which it's based were first written. Anyway, I wasn't sure whether I'd be interested in the movie or not. It did seem like the kind of old-fashioned adventure story I could really dig, but then it also seemed like it could have an old-fashioned corniness. On top of that, the style of motion capture animation is something I'd lump in with rather few other movies I haven't seen, such as "The Polar Express" and Jim Carrey's "A Christmas Carol." They all have a nearly-but-not-quite-lifelike look that puts them somewhat in the Uncanny Valley.

But in Summer of 2012, my cousins wanted me to see it. I think they had it on Blu-ray, but I had no way to watch that. So I didn't see it, then. But I got the DVD in November, and watched it in December. Incidentally, I thought Tintin kinda looked like my cousin Luke. Anyway, um... Tintin is a reporter, who's famous for his various exploits, solving mysteries, foiling crime, and whatnot. I'm not sure how old he is; seems sort of late teens, maybe a boyish early 20s. Teenagers were always having crazy adventures they were way too young for, in fiction from the first half of the 20th century. (Maybe they always have, still do, and always will, but there was a specific feel to the child adventurers of that era, you know?)

So... at the start of the film, Tintin is having his picture drawn by a caricaturist (and naturally, the picture looks like the character did in the original comics). Soon after that, he finds a spectacular model sailing ship for sale by a street vendor, and buys it. Immediately, a man comes along who wants to buy it, but Tintin refuses to sell. Then another guy comes by, wanting to buy it, and again Tintin refuses, even though he could have gotten way more than he paid for it. Later that day, the model is stolen. And he begins investigating the secrets behind why people would want it so badly. It all has to do with a real sailing ship called the Unicorn, which had been sunk years ago in the course of a pirate attack. There's a legend that it was carrying a secret cargo, and that only a true Haddock could solve the mystery of the Unicorn. (Haddock was the name of the ship's captain.) There's also supposedly a curse on the entire Haddock family line.

Well, Tintin ends up getting kidnapped and taken onto a more modern ship, which had been commandeered by a man named Sakharine (the second person who had tried to buy the model). The ship's crew had turned against their captain, who spends most of his time getting drunk. Tintin eventually meets him, and soon learns that he is a Haddock. The two of them, together with Tintin's clever and helpful dog, Snowy, manage to escape from the ship, and set off on an pretty epic adventure, in a race to solve the mystery of the Unicorn before Sakharine and his henchmen (and his own clever and helpful falcon) can do so. We also occasionally see a pair of ridiculously clueless police detectives named Thomson and Thompson, who are friends of Tintin's.

I don't want to reveal any more details of the adventure, but seriously... did I mention it was epic? I'm talking old-school pulp novel epic. And there was a lot of humor. And an old-fashioned earnestness that never quite strayed into the realm of corniness. Of course there were things that I don't necessarily think made sense, in terms of some of the deductive leaps Tintin seemed to make, to drive the plot. And there were things that were sort of silly, and things that were just over-the-top. But it all served the style of grand adventure stories from that era, which is cool. And even the animation style of the characters grew on me; the animation of the backgrounds was always awesome. So, anyway... if you're a fan of retro mystery-adventure stories, you should definitely enjoy this movie. A lot.

...Oh, and incidentally... I meant to mention... it was directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by Peter Jackson, one of the screenwriters was Steven Moffat, the music was by John Williams, and... I'm sure you could find some other familiar names involved in making the movie....