And please don’t misunderstand me. By saying that it’s almost great, I am not saying that it’s very good. On the contrary, it was actually very mediocre. What I mean by almost great is that if they had done a couple of things slightly differently, this would have been a great movie.
Unfortunately some poor choices were made and the film is left wanting.
The first critique of the film needs to be on the style of film making. The film makers used motion capture to create characters that straddle the line between realistic, live action human beings and animated characters. The problem with this approach is that the characters and the story never fully inhabit either world. They’re not full on animated characters, so a lot of the gags that usually work in animation that were attempted in this film don’t work. Also, a lot of the exaggerated features, like big noses and over-sized bodies, don’t look entirely at home in the world that they’ve created. The characters aren’t fully live action either so that seeing them do things that would only work in an animated universe are somewhat unnerving.
The movie probably would have looked a lot better had they just shot it completely as a live-action adventure film, ala Indiana Jones, and used an array of special effects to pull of the more fantastic aspects of the story. In that way, it would have been easier to engage with the characters and care more about them and the story. Or they could have made it a straight animated feature, which probably would allow it to stay truer to the books. Doing that would have allowed them a lot more flexibility in the character and production design, and would have made the whole picture more appealing.
The film also suffers from some pretty sloppy storytelling.
The entire first act has Tin Tin talking the story out through dialogue to his dog Snowy. All of the exposition in the first act literally happens through Tin Tin’s dialogue, and it starts to get annoying after a while. The story also relies too heavily on a flashback sequence that has the Haddock character narrating the sequence as we’re watching it. There are also some moments that happen in the film that suggest sloppy film making. For example, the crux of the story revolves around 3 models of the same ship and the clues inside them that show the resting place of a vast pirate treasure. Tin Tin happens upon one of these ships at a street sale and buys it for a pound. Literally one second later, a man comes up to him and tries to convince him not to buy it, warning him that powerful people have been scouring the earth looking for it. Not even a minute later, said powerful person arrives, and offers Tin Tin to name his price for it, but Tin Tin refuses to sell, and takes the model ship home. When asking who this young man is, the street merchant knows who he is and where he lives. Clearly the film makers were trying to expedite the telling of the story, but this whole sequence was clumsy and lacked any creative thinking.
Another example is during the chase scene when a tank covered in a building appears from nowhere. Clearly the film makers cut the original scenes where the tank first appears, but left in the later scenes for some inexplicable reason, leaving the audience to wonder where the hell it came from.
There is a noticeable lack of structure in the script.
Another way to put that is that there is no third act. There is never a strong moment in the script where Tin Tin appears to have lost everything and the villain appears to have won the day. There is a half-hearted attempt at one when Sakharine has acquired all three clues, and Tin Tin needs to be encouraged by Haddock to keep fighting. But it lasts for about a minute, and there’s never a fear that Tin Tin won’t be able to measure up. That’s a problem with his character depth (he doesn’t have any) and the story’s depth (there isn’t any) as well.
Not that it’s all bad, because it isn’t.
Once the adventure begins, it’s a very entertaining ride. The production design is very good, and a lot of the environments that they created are beautiful and filled with detail. The action sequences are paced very well, and the chase scene through the Moroccan city is like going on a ride at Disneyland. The 3D in the film is very well developed and the detail that it shows in the film is meticulous.
Tin Tin’s dog Snowflake is good for comic relief, and his antics with an otherwise threatening Rottweiler make his presence very much worth while.
Overall, this film is probably a C+ or a B-. Had the film makers decided to go all animated or live action with CG effects would have made it easier to get engaged with the world and its characters. But the film makers tried walking a tight rope and they unfortunately fell off.