The Adventures of Tintin

The Adventures of Tintin is an adventure movie set in the 1930s but it contains a rousing back story involving pirates.

The movie itself is Steven Spielburg's first animated movie and his most entertaining movie since Raiders of the Lost Ark.

According to IMDB, Spielburg has wanted to do a movie based on the Belgium comic strip character, Tintin, since the 1980s. A few years ago he called Steve Jackson to see if Jackson's Weta special effects unit was available to do a live-action version of Tintin. Jackson convinced Spielburg that the movie should be done as an animated movie instead of live-action.

The result is a gorgeously animated movie that never seems to hit the Uncanny Valley. Among other things it features an amazing chase after the clues to the pirate treasure. Most of the chase was done as a continuous take with the camera constantly shifting as it moved from one character to another.

Pirate fans will be glad to know that a good bit of the action takes place at sea - either on a 1930s freighter or on the 17thc century Unicorn.

I suspect that Spielburg had more fun making this movie than he has had in years.

Tintin is not well-known in the US and the movie did not do well here but it was a huge hit overseas and grossed over $300 million. A sequel is planned with Jackson directing and Spielburg producing.