Few Indiana moans

Dir: Steven Spielberg

With: Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Daniel Craig

STEVEN Spielberg the producer has been everywhere this summer, dabbling in everything from boxing robots in Real Steel to crash-landing aliens in Super 8. Here he is back on director duty, combining the finest in old-world comic books with the best of new animation technology. The result, if not quite a match made in heaven, is a ripsnorting ride on the fun side.

This is the Spielberg of Indiana Jones, a director who can’t see a vintage motorbike or a biplane without hitching a ride. It’s the Spielberg of ET, who knows a great visual gag when he sees one. It’s also the Spielberg of Catch Me If You Can, one who can match any European art house director for a stylish visual image.

Alas, it is also the Spielberg who is setting up what is expected to be a trilogy. Such is the weight of plot, younger cinemagoers might have trouble following the story at times. But for them, for everybody, there’s always Snowy.

The fox terrier, as those who follow the adventures of Tintin will know, is the canine sidekick of the titular boy reporter from Belgium. Tintin is the name, scoops are the game and plus fours are the choice of strides. First sight of Tintin will have fans sighing with relief, as Spielberg, producer Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings), and his firm Weta Digital, have him spot-on, from brogues to quiff.

Only partly consoled will be those whose last experience of this type of “performance capture” computer animation was The Polar Express and have been haunted by those lifeless eyes and waxen features ever since. Here, everything is airy and naturalistic, from the bristles of Snowy’s coat to the bloom on Tintin’s face. While still far from perfect – the eyes especially – the technology is getting there.

The story starts as it means to go on, with a rush of points to note and sights to drink in. Tintin (Jamie Bell) and Snowy are in a market when the reporter spies a magnificent model ship, the Unicorn. Learning of the vessel’s troubled history – whispers of a secret cargo, all hands lost bar one, a curse on the ship’s captain, a rum cove by the name of Haddock – Tintin sniffs a story.

He is not the only one after the secret of the Unicorn. A Russian, Ivan Ivanovitch Sakharine (voiced by Daniel Craig in smoothest pantomime baddie tones), has his own reasons for solving the riddle, as does Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis), the direct descendant of the original, unfortunate captain. The game is on for all three, plus Snowy, with the screenplay finding time for an amusing subplot involving Thompson and Thomson and a pickpocket.

It’s in this surreally silly subplot that the film takes its only breather. Otherwise, it’s fasten your seatbelts as Tintin launches himself on the case. This is a film constantly on the move. With Indiana Jones, Spielberg was confined by physics and common sense as to what he could put his leading man through. Here, with no boundaries and clearly relishing the freedom animation affords, he lets rip.

If anything, there’s too much action. The world Herge created was one where adventure was king, but there was also much to linger over visually. Spielberg recognises this, turning in some beautifully realised scenes, such as the scene shift from a rowing boat bobbing on the ocean to a puddle into which someone steps. The man thinks in pictures like he breathes – naturally. A few more moments like these, some time to stop and stare, and it would have been easier to fall in love with the picture. As it is, it’s like cramming for an exam to be taken later.

Should the information and action overload become too much, you can always take refuge in the antics of the film’s true star, the one with four legs and a tail. The utterly adorable Snowy is at the centre of the funniest scenes, pushing that lump of coal nose of his where it doesn’t belong. Like some canine Harold Lloyd, the little dog gets himself into some huge scrapes, and straight back out again, tail wagging.

As for the humans, Andy Serkis puts on an impeccable Scots accent as Captain Haddock, while Bell, old Billy Elliot himself, is a perfect fit for Tintin. Like the script as a whole, he is just the right mix of youthful enthusiasm tempered with contemporary sass. The setting and the dialogue might be period, but the wry humour and the whizz-bang special effects are entirely modern.

It might seem odd that Spielberg, that quintessentially American movie-maker, should find a new home in European material, but what is Tintin if not an earlier model of Indy and, in his hunger for adventure, of Spielberg himself? The boy reporter has found in Spielberg the perfect boyish director.