'Tintin' action packed, but characters limit appeal

Sure, "The Adventures of Tintin" will be a huge box office hit for Steven Spielberg, who's returned to his "Raiders of the Lost Ark" roots for this rollicking tale of a young reporter's investigation into a missing model ship hiding a mysterious message.

The numerous action sequences explode with energy and impossibly crazy stunts that could only be executed in animation. And they're presented in eyeball-grabbing 3-D! (Not exactly "Hugo" quality, but good.)

Spielberg replaced his longtime producing partner George Lucas on "Tintin" with "Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson, and "Tintin" feels as if Spielberg has re-energized his creative batteries with this new partnership.

So what's not to like about "The Adventures of Tintin?"

Let's start with those slightly creepy motion-capture human characters.

Granted, the "Tintin" animated characters are nowhere near the psychotic-looking, possibly demon-possessed, children from Robert Zemeckis' "Polar Express."

The motion-capture characters in "Tintin" don't look nearly as malevolent, but they're still missing what Walt Disney's original animators, known as the Nine Old Men, called "the illusion of life."

The eyes are still dead. What is it about near-perfect photorealistic animation that looks less realistic than the more stylized characters in a Walt Disney animated classic?

The rest of "The Adventures of Tintin" comes off equally as soulless as its characters.

Spielberg whips the high-energy, nonstop action sequences into such a frenetic overkill that the characters take on the nondescript stock personalities of video game denizens required to do little more than run, jump, dodge and fall while throwing out expository plot information.

The story, based on the Belgian comic book hero Tintin, begins with young reporter Tintin (Jamie Bell) with his trusty dog Snowy buying a model ship at a flea market.

Two mysterious men approach him with offers to buy the model. One a sinister Professor Moriarty type named Sakharine (Daniel Craig), the other an American named Barnaby (Joe Starr).

Tintin quickly discovers that the model contains a secret message that when combined with other messages, might lead to a huge treasure at sea.

Tintin (and his little dog, too) gets kidnapped and tossed aboard the ship Karaboudjan, where Captain Archibald Haddock ("Lord of the Rings" star Andy Serkis) has been kept in a permanent state of inebriation by the mysterious Sakharine.

Haddock's 17th century ancestor Sir Francis Haddock holds a key to the mystery, and Tintin determines to discover the truth.

With a script cobbled together from three stories by comic book creator Herge, "Tintin" makes for an agreeable piece of PG-rated holiday entertainment, even without the obligatory girl character who inexplicably evolves into an action figure by the end.

The movie comes with an impressive one-shot chase sequence through the fictional Moroccan city of Bagghar as Tintin and bad guys execute perfectly timed moves to achieve maximum audience payoffs. (This would be a greater achievement in a Martin Scorsese live-action film; in animation, it's so much easier to create in a computer.)

Tintin himself comes off as a flat, personality-challenged gear in the plot, constantly telling us what he thinks and feels while pretending to address his dog Snowy.

Sure beats forcing a motion-capture character to act.

“The Adventures of Tintin”

★ ★ ½

Starring: Jamie Bell, Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg, Andy Serkis, Nick Frost, Toby Jones

Directed by: Steven Spielberg

Other: A Paramount Pictures release. Rated PG. 104 minutes