I don't know how fans of the title hero are going to take this adaptation, since I'm not familiar with the classic Hergé comic strip on which it's based, but followers of Steven Spielberg might regard it as a second-rate, animated Indiana Jones. Here the carrot-topped sleuth (Jamie Bell) travels the world in search of generic sunken gold — no Holy Grail, that — abetted by bibulous Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis) and beleaguered by the villainous Sakharine (Daniel Craig). Some of the chase sequences are diverting enough to remind you that it's in 3D. The most appealing character is Snowy the dog, who serves as a sounding board when the slow-on-the-uptake Tintin explains every plot development, and also as the unsung hero, bailing his inept master out of fixes much like Aardman Animations' Gromit. At any rate he's the only character who doesn't look creepy with the motion-capture animation.
