The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Tintin (2011)

Tintin, in America, is almost a niche thing. You have to have accidentally been introduced to it in order to know what it is. In 3rd grade, my classmates began reading the comics in class, and I became so intrigued that I acquired the comics for myself from the library. Out of the 21 official volumes, I have read 19 (somehow never made it to two of them), but Tintin has been something that I have long since forgotten about.

Now here comes Spielberg, making a movie I would have desired 12 years ago, and one that I was skeptical about. Tintin came to Spielberg's attention in the 80s, when his Indiana Jones was compared to the intrepid reporter from Brussels. I'm thankful he didn't make the film then, even though he received Hergé's (Tintin's author) blessing to adapt it. But he didn't need to do another Indiana Jones then.

The formula of Tintin is almost Hitchcockian as he accidentally stumbles across trouble and then it gets worse from there (although unlike Hithcock's ombudsmen, he is a very resourceful and intelligent reporter). Tintin (Jamie Bell) himself is a one-dimensional character with no flaws, in both comic book and celluloid form. This is a bit unfortunate, but I guess I'm happy the screenwriters didn't try and saddle him with some made up backstory. Fans of the series will forgive this, but I'm not so sure newcomers will be as quick to accept the character.

Of course, this is why Tintin has a fairly strong array of supporting members, most notably the drunk, alliterative curser (though his vocabulary doesn't include anything that would make the film PG-13) Captain Archibald Haddock (Andy Serkis). Captain Haddock is a nice, dark contrast to the always optimistic, never-do-wrong Tintin, and his incompetence can be a bit predictable, but he shines at the right moment. There are also Interpol cops Thompson and Thomson (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost) and Tintin's dog Snowy.

I guess I should back up and give a brief summary of the story. Tintin purchases a beautiful ship model in a market, and is immediately harassed for it by two interested buyers (one is the villain, Sakharine (Daniel Craig)). He soon discovers a scroll hidden within the ship which contains a riddle, and sets out on a globe trotting quest to solve the Mystery of the Unicorn (the name of the ship the model is based on).

Probably one of the largest concerns with the film comes down to the use of Motion Capture, rather then just letting animators freely create the movements. It's a controversial format that has only been successful in James Cameron's Avatar (2009), and even that blended the Mo-Cap with live actors (and the mo-cap aliens had big eyes, so it was easy to erase the dead eye effect). Tintin is so far the best use of Mo-Cap I've seen (full use), and actually seems to address a lot of the dead eye effect issues. I still think the format needs some tweaking, and I still believe letting animators create the movements is the best way, but it still works really well in this film. Andy Serkis gives the best performance, and is a master of the art form, having portrayed Gollum, King Kong, and most recently Caesar in the last Planet of the Apes movie. His performance adds a lot.

But what it comes down to, besides story, besides character, is how much fun the film is, and I haven't been this exhilarated by a film in a long time. It takes its time getting going as Tintin gets a lot of scenes where he just speaks out loud to no one in particular (except his faithful dog Snowy) about the mysteries he is pondering, but once Haddock is introduced, the film takes off. From a thrilling sea plane ride through a thunderstorm, to an unbelievable 5 minute unbroken shot detailing a chase through Morocco, to a final battle involving shipping cranes. Spielberg takes the form of animation and uses it freely, and the result is pure...awesome.

At that's really the best justification for it: Spielberg does things in this film that could not have been achieved in Live Action without a significant amount of CGI, which would have made it look like a cartoon. The Moroccan sequence is particularly spectacular, but throughout the whole film Spielberg's camera moves freely, as if he's a child delighted by a new toy he's discovered. Granted all this movement might become a little sickening in 3D, but in 2D it is perfectly amazing (though I would like to see this on IMAX).

The film opens with a sweet scene where a man modeled after Hergé's visage (the creator of Tintin), sketches a portrait of the young lad that is exactly like the comic book drawings. We are then introduced to the "real" Tintin, and this is a memorable introduction for longtime fans of the books. But how this film will do in America is beyond me. It received an end-of-October release date across Europe and won't hit our cinemas until Christmas (in case you're wondering, I was in Europe when it came out, so I saw it then). The producers are hoping that it will do well enough in Europe that it will generate some interest in America, and if the film does well enough Peter Jackson will helm the sequel (once he's done with The Hobbit).

I highly recommend you all see it. It's a good family film as well, though some families may take the lampooning of Haddock's alcoholism as something that isn't appropriate for children (though I think they can handle it). It may not be perfect, but it's a damn good time at the cinemas. It's what Indiana Jones IV should have been.

#10: The Lord of the Rings (2001 - 2003)

If there's one thing we are going to remember this decade by, it's going to be the chart of the American blockbuster: from its heights as a Best Picture winner, to its fall after LOTR 3 won the top prize in 2003. Think about it, the last time an epic, big budget Hollywood movie won Best Picture was LOTR; since then, its been smaller budget pictures all around, with little box office.

I honor LOTR not because it simply won Best Picture, but because the film is also an amazing feat in filmmaking in general. This movie defined Super-deluxe DVDs, with each one detailing hours and hours of exhausting production. I myself only delved into the Fellowship's special features, but anyone who wants to get a very good idea of what kind of heart and suffering it takes to make a movie, this would be a good one to watch (also Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse).

LOTR details the struggles of young Hobbit Frodo (Elijah Wood) to destroy the Ring of Power before the evil Sauron can fully posses it and return to domination. He is aided by Gandalf the Grey/White (Ian McKellen), Sam (Sean Astin), Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Gimli (John Rhys-Davies), among a wide host of other characters. After Part One, the movies separate into a sprawling saga of Frodo's quest to destroy the ring and Aragorn's quest to less interesting but still awesome and exciting things.

Probably one of the most impressive things about this movie is how wrong it could have gone; most movies dealing with ogres, orcs, elves, and the like are really lame and stupid, and the fantasy genre really ever breaking the mold is unheard of. Yet this movie rose head and shoulders above the rest, and though it is not without its flaws (Liv Tyler, for one, and the six endings of part 3), it still is a masterpiece of filmmaking.

For instance, watching the movies again last year, I was struck by how detailed and precise Peter Jackson, the director, was in keeping scale and frame of reference in mind. Though the Hobbits and Dwarf are played by actors who are average in height, camera trickery and little people are cleverly used to make the "normal" people seem like giants. Of course, now that you know to watch for it you realize the little people in the wide shots really aren't the actors, but it still works.

That, and the movie's perfection of the motion capture technology for the character of Gollum: even six years later, he seems as lifelike and convincing as when he first hit that screen to take the precious. There very few moments in history of true revolution in technology, but this was one, and it convinced James Cameron that computers were advanced enough for him to make Avatar.

The effects work because Jackson doesn't let them dominate the scenery, he uses it to enhance them. This is counter to George Lucas, who instead created most of the sets in his last two Star Wars pics digitally, on Green Screen. The majesty of the mountains, fields, and forests of New Zealand could not be replicated by a computer, and by seamlessly blending special effects with locations, the way they SHOULD be used, he creates a convincing Middle Earth.

And though the movie is long, and I myself have criticized it for its repeated battles, it can't be denied that the films, as a whole, together, are one solid, magnificent piece of filmmaking. True vision like that is hard to find in movies today.

District 9 (2009)

A lot of people have been fawning over a movie called District 9, directed by unknown Neill Blomkamp and released by Peter Jackson. Harry Knowles of AICN said that this was "...the most accomplished, provocative and intelligent science fiction I've seen in this new century." Now I have learned to take what the AICN fanboys say with a grain of salt, and this is no disrespect against them, but they usually don't make statements this bold, and I've seen many other people on the Internets raving about this movie.

So of course I had to go see it. It did look good after all, the teaser trailer and theatrical trailer enticing you but giving none of the story away. This is one of the few movies I went into as blind as possible; I didn't read any reviews until after I had seen it, to gain a perspective on what those other critics had thought of it.

The movie's premise, I have to say, is one of the most original premises we have had in a while. Aliens land not over Chicago, New York, D.C., or L.A., but over Johannesburg, South Africa. The movie is not about what the aliens do to us, but what we do to them. In a very well done mockumentary at the opening, the situation of the Aliens are set up, nicknamed Prawns for their crustaceanlike appearance, and because that associates them with bottom feeders. The Prawns are moved into a slum, which shares the movie's title, and live a fairly disgusting life, loving catfood.

The main character of the film is Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley), an employee of MNU (the company that maintains the Aliens living conditions) who is assigned the task of going through District 9 and getting the Prawns to sign an eviction notice, merrily killing the eggs of the Prawns and arresting/killing those who resist. He has an unfortunate accident which makes him a refugee from humankind.

One might be surprised to learn that this only cost $30 million to make, considering the amount of visual effects are in the film. The Prawns, using the motion capture technology that Jackson's Weta Workshops has perfected, are realistic and exist within the realm of each scene perfectly. You forget they are computer generations and except them as actual beings, much like you did Gollum in LOTR. One Prawn, Christopher Johnson (yes, that is his name) and his son become surprisingly empathetic, and it is one of the movie's great accomplishments.

But alas, this movie is not all that others have made it out to be. While the movie has a terrific set-up and premise, once the movie starts following Wikus' exile it becomes surprisingly formulaic. The villains, and there are many, are so one-dimensional and evil that you can predict their every move (the aliens are not really the enemy, I might add). The fighting and action is badass, to be sure, and is probably the most inventive of the summer, but it goes on and on and on to no end.

And I am getting really, really sick of the shaky camera thing. Jim Emerson, a blog writer for Ebert's website, posted an article titled "Ten Limitations for better movies," and number one on that list was "Get a Tripod." Blair Witch Project (1999) was probably the first to make this popular, though you can most likely trace the origin of shaky cam farther back; the Bourne films kind of made it more Hollywood, and Cloverfield (2008) ushered in a new age of shaky cam. And now I've had enough. Your film will look good even if you don't have it shaking every the whole time. The beginning of the film makes sense, since this stuff is being filmed, but after that I got bored of the shaky cam and wished that it would sit still.

This movie had so much potential to be better then it is. A lot have been recalling Blade Runner and comparing it to that, and while I am not the biggest Blade Runner fan, I think it is a smarter and better movie then this. The movie starts strong, and the transformation the main character goes through is great, but the message of corporate greed is hackneyed, and the movie has the most routine third act for something that started off so fresh and original.

Rated R for Alien/Human swears, a ton of violence, and implied Alien prostitution.