One Ginger Boy and his dog, and a piece of fish.

'The Adventures of Tintin: The secret of the Unicorn'

Herge's classic comic book Tintin has been a hit all over the world, being translated to more then 80 languages and was made into 5 live action films, but people would be more used to the popular 90's cartoon which used to air early Saturday mornings, which I used to enjoy. Now The adventures of Tintin has hit the big time! With a big budget and a who's who of names behind it, with a certain Mr. Spielberg taking the director helm, with Peter Jackson on producer duties. But that's just the start on writing team, Stephen Moffatt, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish, giving it a distinctive British feel to it.

We follow our Ginger hero and his faithful dog Snowy straight off on the trail of another mystery, this time of the ship, the Unicorn of which he buys the model of the ship only to find that someone else is desperate for it, the very suspicious Ivanovich Sakharine (Daniel Craig) , so that intrigues Tintin (Jamie Bell) to find out what is so special with this ship. It lands Tintin in some very hairy situations, and leads him to find the whiskey fueled  Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis) who is plays a major part in the story.

On the eye this is a very good looking movie, being in motion capture animation. Which will have all generations glued to the beautiful action scenes, which indeed look like it would of took a lot of time and skill to create. Well done Spielberg for that. The action scenes are very much the strong point of this movie, with some slapstick element, which add's a brilliant comedy element towards a few of the scenes. Notably the plane scene is brilliantly done.Tintin is quite a serious characterful, so Captain Haddock and the Thompson twins (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost) bring the light relief.   

Now, I found that some of the scenes dragged a bit, leaving the film maybe a bit too long. I did find myself losing a bit of interest on a few occasions, so I wouldn't say that it's a return to form for Spielberg, but it's a decent try, but unfortunately no cigar, as the saying goes. Lack of any female characters is really noticeable, to counter the male dominated film. As far as voice talent goes, Andy Serkis has a skill for being a brilliant voice talent.

I would say if your stuck for taking the kids to see something at the weekend, yes this will do for them, even though some long scenes, the animation will carry the interest through. Peter Jackson has confirmed he will take over the directing for the sequel, so lets see if he can iron out the few little problems and make a sequel to be excited about.

3 out of 5