Tim und der Haifischsee

This time our friends go to Sildavia where takes place several adventures . The picture will appeal to the fans of the popular animated hero named Tintin and his faithful sidekicks as well as the comic-books nostalgics. As Tintin and captain Haddock along with the Dupont brothers travel in a Balkan country to find professor Tornasol who has invented a machine that can duplicate anything .The professor is residing in a location near a lake plenty of sharks and next the border of Syldavia( Tintin and the scepter of Ottokar) and Bodouria but a criminal master mind named Rastapopoulous (Cigarrettes of pharaoh) attempts to force professor Tornasol to give up the machine by abducting two local children who live nearby , in order to get by all means the magical artifact .

This is a nice adventure with hilarious moments here and there, and has Tintin and his inseparable friends captain Haddock , absent-minded professor Tornasol , the botcher Dupont brothers taking on , as always, against stupid enemies , this time Rastapopoulos ,the ruthless and infamous international delinquent . This cartoon movie of the popular "Tintin" comic-book magazine brilliantly captures the outrageous adventures, tongue in cheek, satire, comedy ,taking the characters and some elements from original stories , such as the shark-submarine (Treasure of Rackam the Red) and the Rastapopoulos's underwater amphibious. Although contains a primitive drawing , however being better developed than former entry ¨Tintin and the temple of the sun¨ , both of them produced by Raymond Leblanc . This amusing movie is accompanied by lively musical score with a catching leitmotif on the start and the ending. Full of humor , it's a funny entertaining for kids and grown-ups . The entertaining screenplay isn't based on the known comics by Herge but originally written by Michel Greg author of Achille Talon (1977 ,TV series and comics ) , 1981 L'Agence Labricole (TV series (screenplay) and 1970 Tintín in the temple del sol (dialogue). This cartoon movie is professionally directed by Raymond Leblanc . He was a Belgian publisher who started the weekly magazine in 1946 with the participation of Georges Rémi ("Hergé") . Under Leblanc's guidance, the boy reporter became the hero of a weekly children's magazine, with Hergé as the artistic director and magnificent creator of the immortal personage . Later on ,Leblanc produced the following films: Iznogoud ,1978 Gulliver's Travels ,1972 Lucky Luke el intrepid ,1970 Tintín in the temple of the sun ,1968 Astérix y Cleopatra and 1967 Astérix the Gaul. The picture will appeal to Tintin comic-books buffs. An agreeable , funny adaptation from a great comic book.

If you are a Tintin fan then do not watch this. The only artwork that does credit to Herges' method and style is any illustrations that they can take from existing Herge material - if I could bear to watch this trashy attempt again I'd go through and pick out where they used existing Herge illustrations without modification from the Herge albums. This is not based on a Herge album at all.

It is peppered with godawful sing-a-long songs and does not have the seriousness of a Herge plot ( being a rip off of a James Bond film ).

To give you an example of how this film is a mismatch, compare any character that there does not exist a Herge template for with the Herge characters:

1. The local children that "save" them at the start in an unrealistic fashion are drawn in a disney style, the dog is drawn in a hanna-barbera style and the gags are Tom and Jerry.

2. Captain Haddocks voice is that of Popeye the Sailor man. I keep expecting him to break out the spinach.

3. The character that cuts the telephone wires uses actual Muttley sniggering from Wacky Races.

4. Any non Herge character is drawn in harsh primary colours, did they pay him any respect in this film?

Other things that may annoy:

1. Tintin fails to call the police even though they nearly die in a plane crash at the start ( shades of Ottokars Sceptre ).

2. Calculus goes between not being able to hear clearly ( as his Herge character does ) to having precise hearing randomly throughout.

3. Herge prided himself on drawing realistic vehicles from the period and making as much "real" as possible, Rastapopolous's spider craft? Calculus's laboratory?

4. The jokes about Captain Haddock in Tintin revolve around his drinking, aggressiveness and comedy timing, apart from an incident with golf clubs on an elevator his character is out of character.

This is an appalling sin against Herges' characters, if you value Tintin beyond being a "boy's own" style of story then just give up now and watch infomercials instead. If you are new to Tintin, this is the worst place to get your introduction. Appalling, how some could give it a 10 is beyond me, save those for the French-Canadian TV series which did Herge some justice.

I defy anyone to watch the English dubbed version and not want to sing out "Im popeye the sailor man toot-toot" everytime Haddock opens his mouth.

Herge could draw, the animators obviously couldn't. Herge had his own style, the animators clearly wanted to work for Disney.

'Tintin et le rac aux requins' is not based on one of the books of Herge. Greg (also a maker of comics) wrote the story for this film. He didn't do a really bad job, but there are no surprises or (very) funny scenes in the scenario. It is a simple film about Tintin going on adventure with his dog Bobbie and Haddock, the captain. On the way to the prof. (called Tournesol in the original French version) they meet the two stupid detectives (called Dupont et Dupond in the original French version). The prof. has invented something and Tintin and Haddock (this is their real French name) have to protect it from Rastapopoulos, a bad villain who is never scary or something that would make him a real villain.

There are no surprises, jokes or something else this film could and should be remembered for. And the worst of all: Greg came up with two annoying kids who are trying to help Tintin in his 'quest' to beat Rastapopoulos.

If you really want to enjoy yourself: read the books of Tintin made by Herge, because they ARE funny, full of surprises and they DO have things one could and should remember!!!

This new Tintin's adventure (which isn't an adaptation of one of Hergé's albums) is quite successful although it brings nothing to Tintin's glory. It restores the atmosphere and the subjects that made the Tintin's success. We find a spy (here, it happens to be Mms Vlek), a highly-coveted Calculus' invention by Rastapopoulos' crew and a murder attempt.

Of course, , the action, the humor (that mostly comes from the eccentric Thompsons detectives) and the justice's victory are always on appointment. Let's add a correct animation, some beautiful sceneries, always entertaining characters (Tintin, the captain Haddock, professor Calculus, the Thompsons detectives) and we get a honourable success.

I really enjoyed this movie. I saw it when I was a kid and had a chance to see it again with my daughter. The story is quite nice. There is a lot of action and humor. The pace is good and setting is nicely done. The story is original with a lot of references to the books.

I don't know about the voices in English, but the French voices are excellent.

Even if the story is a little more "simple" than what you will find in the books you have to remember that in the 70's, cartoons were made mostly for children. There was rarely 2 levels to a story, one for children and one for adults as it is so common (and fun) today. Still the story here is sufficiently well done to be entertaining for adults.

Finally, Hergé himself worked on the movie. So I guess he must have found this close enough to the world of Tintin to be made.