Preview: Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn

When you were a kid, did you ever wonder if the toys you played with or the books you read would one day become multi-million dollar blockbusters? Like every other 6 year old, I was certain of it. But after sitting on my bed, munching popcorn and laughing at Michael Bay for his atrocious Transformers films, I was amazed to see a Tintin trailer which looked absolutely bloody marvellous.

It’s based on three of the books which ran a direct story: The Crab with the Golden Claws, The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham’s Treasure. Joyfully, these are probably the best books in the whole set, bar perhaps Tintin in Tibet. After Tintin buys a model boat at a market, he discovers within it a map to hidden treasure. He sets off with that old blisterin’ barnacle, Captain Haddock (who has quite reasonably been made Scottish for the film) and his faithful dog Snowy to find it. But they’re not the only ones looking…

A lot of exciting things happened in Tintin and there were some nasty moments (the villains being dragged to Hell at the end of Tintin and the Broken Ear did nothing for my sleeping pattern as a young’un) but I don’t remember it ever being as crazily riotous as this looks! Planes no-one can fly, quad-bikes with rocket launchers, jumping out of windows onto moving vehicles, lighting fires in a boat. They don’t even care! I’m ecstatic Spielberg got his mits on this.