Steven Spielberg once said that he would never abandon celluloid for digital cinema. However, in his first and, I hope, only foray into motion-capture cinema, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, he has done exactly that. Motion-capture cinema, which takes the technology to create a virtual character on screen – – and extends it to all the characters and landscape, has one main exponent, Robert Zemeckis, but few others. In these films, actors are filmed in front of a blue screen playing the part, rather than simply reading lines. Then their physical performance becomes the basis of a semi-photo realistic animation. Features are morphed and distorted, so in Tintin the very different body-shapes of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are made to look alike, as detective duo the Thompson Twins. At its worst, performances get lost in the transformation.
Motion capture is the enemy of movie stars, whose looks are the basis of their appeal, but manna for directors such as Spielberg where the action is central. The standout set piece, roughly four-fifths into the movie, in a virtual continuous shot chase sequence through the streets of 1930s Morocco; once you’re in on the joke, you beam appreciatively. However, this is scant compensation for a film that fails to capture your imagination from the outset. It is more of a technical achievement than efficient entertainment.
Jamie Bell is nominally cast as Tintin, who looks like a photorealistic version of illustrations from Hergé’s stories – these are acknowledged in the opening. He is a boy reporter who buys a reproduction of an old schooner, which pits him against the villainous descendant of a pirate (Daniel Craig, barely recognisable). The model contains part of a clue that puts Tintin and his intrepid dog, Snowy, in touch with Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis, the Laurence Olivier of motion-capture cinema). Haddock, an alcoholic prisoner of the pirate, is the film’s main character. He is another of Spielberg’s lost sons with “daddy issues”.
At 106 minutes, Tintin is a short film by Spielberg’s standards, barely pausing for breath to explain or allow us to become emotionally involved with Tintin. We root for Haddock to overcome his poor self-image and enjoy Snowy’s exploits, when, for example, he has to retrieve a set of keys without waking up a cabin full of pirates.
The only female character of any note – actually a lot of notes, of the musical variety – is the Milanese Nightingale, an opera star. Locations shift from an old mansion to the high seas, the air and finally a desert. The second most audacious sequence involves a sword fight with cranes. Again, you laugh at the conceit, but it is not exactly thrilling.
Heavyweight storytellers Steven Moffat (Dr Who), Edgar Wright and, er, Joe Cornish (Attack the Block) have contributed to a screenplay that is perhaps too faithful to the source material. I don’t think Tintin really bears a look through modern sensibilities; we are primed for something more high concept. I’m not exactly thrilled by the prospect of a Tintin sequel to be directed, at some point, by co-producer Peter Jackson.
Watching the highly nonsensical big-budget Real Steel, set in a near future in which there is no real boxing between humans, so instead huge metal robots slug it out in the ring on behalf of their operators, I found myself counting down the absurdities.
Ten: why are the operators in the movie all men when clearly the robots are genderless? There are plenty of women who play video games. I didn’t buy it that the coach’s daughter (Evangeline Lilly) just ran a gym.
Nine: instead of weight divisions for real boxers, why isn’t the sport organised into robots of various levels of technological sophistication. Here, a scrap yard robot named Atom operated by former boxer Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) and his estranged 11-year-old son, Max (Dakota Goyo) is pitted against the super droid Zeus; it is surely the equivalent of a heavyweight against a welterweight .
Eight: if you have robots in the ring, then surely you have greater capacity for extravagant movements; there is simply no reason for these tin types to move like humans when they can box with their arms behind their heads.
Seven: why are the robots restricted to a boxing ring? An arena would be more appropriate.
Six: why aren’t the robots plastered with advertising like racing cars. There
are plenty of product adverts around the arenas?
Five: why do metal robots need gyms and not proper testing facilities?
Four: what happens if a robot is knocked out of the ring? You think: insurance nightmare.
Three: Where is the robot referee? And why do the cut-men not have welding equipment?
Two: How many times must we watch an absent father fight for the son he initially abandoned?
One: I kept waiting for the robots to develop personalities and run riot. The makers should haved re-made Westworld instead.
Sorry, producers Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg, I’m out
