Pun Salad

I never got into the Tintin comics much, although I enjoyed what I read. But Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson were huge fans, and they did a decent job of turning them into PG-rated action (mortion-capture animation) flick. Although it was 3-D in the movies (and also available that way at home, if you have the equipment), I saw the 2-D version; unlike Hugo, I didn't feel I was missing much of importance.

This is an "origin" story, but as the movie opens Tintin, a young European journalist, is already semi-famous for rooting out corruption and crime, with his super-intelligent dog Snowy. Adventure begins by accident when Tintin buys a ship model from a street vendor just ahead of the evil Dr. Sakharine. Pretty quickly Tintin's flat is ransacked, a mysterious character is shot to death on his doorstep (but in a totally PG manner); and Tintin is hijacked aboard a dilapidated old freighter. In his escape attempt, he meets up with drunken, but good-hearted, Captain Haddock, who will become his comrade for the rest of the movie. (And, as readers know, for the rest of their lives.)

There's a lot of slapstick humor. Stop-motion animation is still kind of creepy, although I understand it's much better than it used to be.