Mostly praise for Spielberg-Jackson Tintin film

Spielberg was a late convert to the adventures of Tintin and Captain Haddock.(Paramount Pictures)

Steven Spielberg's collaboration with Sir Peter Jackson to put cartoon classic Tintin on the big screen has received mostly glowing reviews.

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn premieres this coming weekend in Brussels before its first international release next week - also in Belgium, home country of Tintin's creator Hergé.

Reviews from that country have so far been enthusiastic.

"Bull's eye" was the headline in the Dutch-language De Standaard newspaper, while the French language Le Soir called it "a pure jewel".

Film magazine Empire gave the movie four out of five stars, saying it was "action-packed, gorgeous and faithfully whimsical".

Empire said co-producer Jackson had "cajoled a joie de cinema" from Spielberg, noting that whereas Jackson had been a "Tintin geek" since boyhood, Spielberg was a late convert.

"In effect, Spielberg landed the goofball sidekick with whom to traverse the globe, without leaving the studio," the magazine said.

Spielberg directed the cast including Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis and Daniel Craig in a Los Angeles studio.

They wore bodysuits covered in spots and, exploiting motion capture technology, Wellington-based Weta Digital converted their movements and expressions into what is now an animated film.

But two British papers have faulted the animation.

The Guardian gave the film only two stars, saying the human details are sorely wanting.

"How curious that Hergé achieved more expression with his use of ink-spot eyes and humble line drawings than a bank of computers and an army of animators were able to achieve," the review said.

The Daily Telegraph gave it three stars and also panned the computer graphics for eliciting less expression than two dots from the Belgian cartoonist's pen.

"The difference, you see, is in the eyes. And in this first of three planned Tintin films by Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson, the eyes do not have it - it being that vital, twinkling difference that separates a character worth caring about from a dummy in a Debenhams shop window."

Entertainment rag Variety, however, differed.

"With immense sensitivity, the animators have translated Hergé's spare, elegant drawings into a multidimensional world that seems realistic," it said.

AAP (Agence France-Presse)

Published at ABC News, October 18, 2011