BEFORE: Well, what a difference a day makes. Yesterday I was all stressed out over the job thing, and I still am, but last night I went out with a friend to a 5-course beer dinner, and after the second course the restaurant's kitchen caught on fire. It seemed at first like a small, easy-to-control grease fire, but it spread to the ceiling or perhaps up the ductwork, to the point where the pub needed to be evacuated. The fire department showed up right away, and we went across the street to watch black smoke pouring from the roof of the building. After a while we moved on to a delicatessen to get some pastrami sandwiches and enjoy the fact that we made it out alive. Something like this can really change your outlook on things. I'm not saying I cheated death, but it's a stroke of good luck that no one was injured, including me.
Linking from "Planes", John Cleese was also in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" with Toby Jones (last seen in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier")
AFTER: Well, there's a lot to like here if you're a fan of action films, especially non-stop ones like the Indiana Jones films. Spielberg's influence as a director is evident, because there's that mix of history and fantasy along with the treasure-hunting. However, even though this is CGI and most action films are live-action, you still might pick up on the vibe that you've seen some elements of this story before.
There's desert stuff, pirate stuff, detective stuff - like if you threw "Sahara", "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "National Treasure" into a blender with the Indiana Jones series, then strained all that through a Belgian comic book. I don't know much about the Tintin comic series, perhaps that would have helped.
A lot of the animation (and therefore the action) is quite impressive - however, when you factor in that with CGI you can just about make anything happen, that makes me wonder if these feats of movie magic should be regarded as slightly less impressive. The world of movie magic that used to belong to stunt-men and explosives experts now belongs to a bunch of computer nerds. Plus, there are some action sequences that made me think, "If you can use CGI to create anything, why the heck would you create THAT?"
I also found much of the action to be repetitive - there are numerous times when people are hit on the head with bottles, for example. For that matter there's a lot of drinking seen in what should be a film for children, I wonder if there wasn't a better way to portray Haddock than as a constant drinker. And then when he finally sobers up, the plot demands that he start drinking again, because that's the only way he can remember details about his family history. That's a questionable message.
I'm also questioning the ending, which felt sort of like a cop-out, and not in step with what we'd been led to believe throughout the film. There's a difference between supplying a surprising answer to a riddle and just completely disregarding a whole film's set-up.
Also starring the voices of Jamie Bell (last seen in "The Eagle"), Andy Serkis (last heard in "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey"), Daniel Craig (last seen in "Sylvia"), Simon Pegg (last heard in "Ice Age: Continental Drift"), Nick Frost (ditto), Cary Elwes (last seen in "Cradle Will Rock").
RATING: 5 out of 10 lifeboats
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