The Adventures of Tintin

The other day i watched The Adventures of Tintin again and i really enjoyed it. Its a typical action story in a traditional Tintin style, however the main thing i loved about the film was the character design and movement. The animation for the characters was done with motion capture and it really shows through. Every character has small mannerisms that real people have in real life, small things like a scratch of the nose to big things like how people walk. Not only does the reality of the characters stand through but the director (Steven Spielberg) shows his knowledge and care around the uncanny valley.

  The uncanny valley is a theory behind why we feel so uncomfortable with things that take human form but aren't human. Films such as The Polar Express show a lack of understanding behind the uncanny valley, the characters are a human shape and move very similar to humans but the eyes have a lack of humanity about them which adds an element of creepiness.

The Adventures of Tintin however shows an understanding of the uncanny valley; though the characters move very close to humans the facial shapes are exaggerated, overly large noses, overly small eyes etc, furthermore the action scenes have a slapstick loony-tunes feel to them with a lot of variables reacting in such a way that the characters are unrealistically lucky, a trope that is fun at first but soon gets tiresome. 

  Overall i found the story to be relatively average, a boy goes on an adventure and finds treasure, defeats the bad guy etc, but the understand for the uncanny valley and the characters movement really draw me into this film, and i am definitely looking forward to The Adventures of Tintin 2.