Trailer Park: “Tintin” Looks Like A Return To Form For Steven Spielberg

Three years after churning out the sickening dud Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Steven Spielberg looks to bounce back by releasing a film that harkens back to his roots as a director that handles action and suspense just as well as character and emotion. Based on the popular Belgian comic series that ran for much of the 20th century, The Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn seems like the perfect project for Spielberg as he tries to teach this new generation of Hollywood directors that action movies can be about more than explosions and CGI robots.

Using the latest CGI motion capture technology, Tintin looks to blend real life aesthetics with the stylized feel of the original Hergé comics. The result is a look that deftly brings to life the world of a cartoon, all while displaying the subtle emotions and detail that this advanced technology is capable of. With such a romantic director that the helm, Tintin looks to shy away from the recent trend of overly serious action movies that are infesting cinemas everywhere by injecting some humor and a sense of wonder back into theaters. 

And while the impressive CGI, coupled with Spielberg’s eye for action, may be what gets people’s attention, it’s the voice acting by Jamie Bell and Andy Serkis that might just be the film’s real highlight. This trailer may not show much, but there already seems to be a great chemistry between the two, and they both help give more life to their CGI counterparts. If they nail these characters, people will forget about nitpicking the CGI and the 3D and just get lost in the story.

We’ll find out if Spielberg still has the Midas touch when Tintin gets released on December 23, five days before the director's next Oscar-baiting drama, War Horse, which also looks solid. It's about to be a Spielberg kind of Christmas.