Tintin: The Adventures of Steven Spielberg

Copyright: www.us.movie.tintin.com

“Kids, no matter what your age, you’re kids, and you’ll be kids the rest of your lives. I’ve been a kid all my life,” Steven Spielberg, apparently, shouted to thousands of people at the Comic-Con International Convention held in San Diego last month. You can imagine the effect he must have had on his audience, a caboodle of comic-book, graphic-novel and animated-movie fans from all over the world. I wasn't there but I read about it in the papers and on the internet and knew what he was screaming about.

Hollywood’s master craftsman had every reason to be excited: after all, he is releasing The Adventures of Tintin, the part-animated 3D motion capture film, on December 23. Not everyone gets a chance to make and release a film based on a universally popular and monumental character like Tintin; that too on a grand scale as you will see this year-end.

When was the last time you remember a film, based on a comic-book hero, create anticipatory anxiety among superhero fans? In my opinion Tintin and Asterix are superheroes too.

Let’s see: Tim Burton, Joel Schumacher and Christopher Nolan stirred us up with Batman while Sam Raimi had us rooting for the first Spider-Man movie ever to be made (thumbs-up to Val Kilmer, thumbs-down to Tobey Maguire). Between the caped crusader and the web crawler, or since 2000, we have had the less hyped-up Hulk, Daredevil, Catwoman, Fantastic Four, Superman (Returns), Iron Man and Thor. We liked them because we love our comics and because we are faithful to our comic-book heroes. Mentalpiece icons…

I will not comment on Captain America because I have not seen the film, as I write this piece, and also because the reception to Steve Roger's alter ego has been rather lukewarm in India. 

The closest I can remember a superhero film creating a mild frenzy was in 1978 when Richard Donner ‘shocked and awed’ us with Superman (Did you see that? He actually made Superman fly!). Remember: this was long before the technology-digital-marketing revolution gave us a new purpose in life. Thirty-three years on, Christopher Reeve’s reign as Kal-El, Clark Kent and Superman remains unchallenged.

Yet, none of these films, with the exception of Batman and Spider-Man to an extent, has created the kind of media and marketing hoopla that is building up around Tintin; at least not several months prior to the launch of the film.

I reckon Steven Spielberg is going to rake it in with his maiden adventure of the young Belgian reporter and I don’t think the film will be panned by fans and critics as is anticipated. Netizens are suggesting that Spielberg would have done better with Asterix which I desperately hope will be his next directorial venture. Gérard Depardieu took the fun out of the boar-gorging, Roman-bashing, menhir-delivering Obélix in the Asterix movies.

For now, Spielberg promises to delight us with his celluloid adaptation of Tintin. I, for one, am waiting to be surprised. What better way for a kid to ring in the new year…

Where is Prof. Calculus?
The Adventures of Tintin is the story of the secret of the unicorn where Tintin and Capt. Haddock go off on a treasure hunt to locate a sunken ship captained by Haddock’s bearded and sword-wielding ancestor Red Rackham. So it’s a combination of two Tintin adventures, The Secret of the Unicorn and its sequel Red Rackham’s Treasure which owes its humour element to the antics of Prof. Cuthbert Calculus. Unfortunately, his character appears to be missing in the Steven Spielberg offering.

Comics to cinema: journey of the superhero

Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Daredevil, The Hulk and Iron Man…

These are the initial six superheroes from the DC and Marvel stables whose transformation from their first comic book appearance decades ago (covers on the left) to their big screen debut decades later (posters on the right) has left readers and viewers asking for more.

The box office craze for superhero movies started with Richard Donner’s Superman in 1978 where the late Christopher Reeve played ‘The Man of Steel’ to perfection. He was equally convincing as Superman in the three sequels that followed even though the storylines did not match up to his super feats. Brandon Routh acted well in Superman Returns in 2006 but was nowhere close to Reeve’s portrayal of Clark Kent/Superman—a role that began and ended with Reeve. R.I.P.

Ditto for Batman, though I prefer Val Kilmer as ‘The Caped Crusader’ in Joel Schumacher’s 1995-released Batman Forever over Michael Keaton in Tim Burton’s 1989 film Batman. If you have read Batman comics, you will easily pick Kilmer as Bruce Wayne/Batman over Keaton and the two other contenders, George Clooney (Batman & Robin, 1997) and Christian Bale (Batman Begins, 2005, and The Dark Knight, 2008). Bale comes a distant second.

Tobey Maguire just doesn’t become Peter Parker in the Spider-Man film series directed by Sam Raimi in 2002, 2004 and 2007. His portrayal of ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ was as weak as Keaton’s Batman. They are both okay as long as they are both wearing their masks. Don’t ask me why.

The one-film Daredevil starring Ben Affleck who plays the suave Matt Murdock, the blind lawyer by day and masked vigilante by night, was directed by Mark Steven Johnson and released in 2003. The role of ‘The Man Without Fear’ suited Affleck but then he has no competitors. The first half-hour of the film, where a young Murdock who lives with his father, boxer Jack Murdock, in the Hell's Kitchen neighbourhood of New York City and is blinded by a radioactive substance, is worth every rupee spent on popcorn.

Director Ang Lee turned ‘The Incredible Hulk’ into an animated cartoon character in The Hulk released in 2003. Fortunately, Louis Leterrier, who directed The Incredible Hulk (2008) with seasoned actor Edward Norton in the lead, salvaged the character of the green giant and did justice to “Hulk is the strongest there is…” I thought Eric Bana was a trifle more convincing as Dr. Bruce Banner and his alter-ego The Hulk in the Lee film than Ed Norton. This one’s still open to debate, though.

Iron Man, the latest in the superhero sextet, is hugely entertaining, both for its super visuals and sounds as well as the super performance by Robert Downey Jr. You might not agree with the choice of the swashbuckling RDJ as Anthony Edward Stark or The Invincible Iron Man in the two versions directed by Jon Favreau and released in 2008 and 2010, but you got to admit, however grudgingly, that he does justice to the armoured man’s role. More power to Iron Man’s heart!