Here comes the good news first: "The Adventures of Tintin" (aka "Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn") is overall entertaining as all get out. Steven Spielberg acts like a kid with a brand new giant bin of LEGOs in this movie, taking full advantage of the whole concept of a virtual camera and virtual settings. There's a stunning flashback to a pirate battle at sea where the camera spins and swoops and careens through space as the characters fly through the air and clamber over every inch of the two ships. Near the climax, that scene is topped by a chase through a city seen mostly from the point of view of a flying character. These scenes are hard as hell to describe adequately but, listen, they're well worth watching the movie for. The script is often fun as well and the story is a good old-fashioned wikkid fun hellzapoppin' globe-trotting adventure we just don't see anymore.
Visually, the film looks terrific. The cities, the vehicles, the effects, glowing treasure chests, sinking pirate ships, and fluttery pieces of parchment. All of them look varying degrees of fantastic.
The human and animal characters look good too, as long as they are not facing the screen and are sitting perfectly still.
Right. So let's talk about the motion capture.
Because this is what comes damn close to killing any good will I have for the film. Remember when the very first trailers for "Tintin" came out and they looked suspiciously reluctant to show the characters' faces? Well, surprise surprise, there's a reason for that. Now, to be perfectly fair, the characters look more appealing here than in most other mo-cap movies. But the filmmakers made the exceedingly odd choice of making the characters as utterly photorealistic as possible - while retaining their distinctive caricaturish features from the comics.
The result is, to say the least, jarring as f***. I have heard that there is no real evidence to support the theory of the Uncanny Valley, and yet I can confirm that there is a part of my brain that wigs out when confronted with the sight of a Creature That Looks Like A Man But Is NOT A Man, because it was going haywire every time a new character was introduced.
The weird thing is, this time it wasn't just the human characters who set this off. Snowy the dog (and best character in the movie) looks fine for the most part, probably since after decades of watching animation I am used to odd-looking dogs (what up, Pluto?) And yet it's unnerving when you start to notice his fluttery little tongue going in his mouth ALMOST -but not quite- like a real terrier. There's also a "falcon" that is, frankly, the worst-looking character in the entire movie. It looks, acts, and flies like no winged creature on God's green Earth. In twenty-one years, we went from Marahute to this thing. Yeah.
With all this in mind, and with the fact that Spielberg directed the ultimate (if I may repeat myself) good old-fashioned wikkid fun hellzapoppin' globe-trotting adventures we just don't see anymore as live-action films in the 1980's, I wonder what was even the point of making the "Tintin" films in motion-capture? I mean, if you're film is going to be essentially a live-action film with extensive animated effects populated with wrong-looking people, why are you even motion-capturing it? And notice I didn't say "why didn't you animate it", because this film very definitely has put me on Team "Motion Capture Is Not Animation" (Team MCINA? Team MoCapINAni? Whatever.) Now, Motion Capture is a very powerful effects tool. I rather liked "Avatar" (but mostly because of the world-building), and "Rise of the... Apes" made the water come out my eyes, enough said. But I guess if your entire movie is motion-captured, it just feels so... *pointless*.
I'd love to hear (well, read) other people's thoughts on this. But until then, "Tintin" is worth a look, though I don't know if I'll be on board with the next in the series.
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Sketch of the Day
While I was in the Uncanny Valley, I was asked by these friendly... people... to paint their portraits. (Seriously, I apologize for these.)
It's been a while since we looked at trailers for upcoming animated (or not) films together, hasn't it? Fortunately, there's a huge crop out in the wake of ComiCon and they include some unusual films indeed. And questionable book-to-film title changes. Lots of them.
First off, "Winnie the Pooh", a very unexpected and pleasant surprise in this overall dreadful summer, is in theaters now. This is worth mentioning because it was released on the same weekend as, and has been a teeny tiny bit overshadowed by, another movie based on a beloved British children's book.
By the way, great jarb there Disney.
Here, just to get it out of the way, is the full trailer for "Happy Feet 2: Farewell to the Flesh". You are probably already aware that I disliked the original "Happy Feet", and while I figured the sequel might improve things (this is the same George Miller who gave us the awesomely bizarre "Babe: Pig in the City"), this here trailer is... discouraging. Actually, there are several things I could say about it but I will instead say this: At about the twenty second mark, I figured the makers of this film are, in fact, f**king with us.
I love how this cute teaser for Aardman's "Arthur Christmas" openly acknowledges right from the start that it's hard to get excited about a Christmas movie in high summer. I also like how this reminds me a little of the late, lamented "Cranium Command" show at EPCOT.
One of the overlooked treasures of the young adult novel section at your local library is illustrator Brian Selznick's Caldecot winning semi-graphic novel, The Invention of Hugo Cabret. The film, directed by no less than Martin Scorsese, comes our way in November. The trailer is a bit heavy on the slapstick (and the love-it-or-hate-it stylings of 30 Seconds to Mars Frozen Embryos), but everything else looks gorgeous.
A second trailer for "Tintin" was trotted around the internet recently and... disappeared mysteriously. Hopefully, this French trailer will stick around for a while. Is it me or does it look like they're still suspiciously reluctant to show the characters' faces?
So... here's "Puss in Boots". After this is over, can we be done with "Shrek" and everything associated with same? Please? I'll be good!
And now for our most far-flung movies. Although the film doesn't hit theaters until March, Aardman has dropped the trailer for "Pirates!" already. You may have heard that they are no longer affiliated with Dreamworks. You may have also heard that Nick Park and company have been wanting to make a pirate movie since at least "Flushed Away" (which originally involved -yes- pi-rats and wound up a bit of a mess instead). I'm getting a distinct "Look at what we can do NOW" vibe from this trailer.
Finally -FINALLY!- we've got our first look at PIXAR's "John Carter" (which anyone reading a blog like mine probably already knows is, in fact, "A Princess of Mars". And yes, that is on my summer reading list.) Obviously most of the "big" effects aren't done yet, so this looks a little generic.
And Fridge Logic: Why not use "Kings and Queens" here instead?
And speaking of PIXAR, here's the teaser for "Brave". Seeing as one of PIXAR's hallmarks is the fact that they like to research their asses off, I am giddy with excitement over this one.
As far as series, and me being giddy with excitement, hey there, "Legend of Korra" trailer!
And just because I can, here's a very special find. A teaser trailer for a film that never saw the light of day. Originally, "Siegfried" was to be a full-length animated feature, but the funding was cut. The story was eventually made into a graphic novel, but the trailer, with a look somewhat similar to early period Don Bluth films, shows us we missed out on something amazing.
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Sketch of the Day!
I said recently I hadn't drawn enough dragons. Came up with this turtle-dragon.
