Tintim e o Lago dos Tubarões

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.

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.

After watching the series, then this movie, what a letdown! I totally agree with the previous comments from Dave Pit in France. Not true to the original Tintin character and the voices are appalling! I agree with the Popeye comment made earlier about Captain Haddock. That's what we thought too; what a monotone. They could have at least tried to make the voices similar sounding.

It sounds and looks like some cheap rendition of a Scooby Doo story, with a bit of James Bond thrown in (the hand on the chair). The animation is cheap too, as is the music; sounded like something off a 70's do-good cartoon trying to save the world! I can't believe all that lengthy singing was added either! Very disappointing. Will stick to the TV series; and the books that I grew up with.

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 agree with most posters, true fans will notice everything that is so wrong with this film. I was excited at having found this DVD as it is one of the only ones i haven't seen. seen and i am so disappointed.. i have it playing right now and it has failed to capture and keep my attention. Every time i do look up there is something awful.. the voices are all wrong, especially tin tin and haddock. there was one scene where tintin is wearing a tank top singlet) and he has all these muscles.. I don't know the whole image of him is just wrong. The series was so much better, i think i may just watch a few of those to compensate! I would not recommend this to anyone but maybe very young kids that may appreciate the bright colors. If this is your first introduction to tintin and it turns you off, don't despair, watch some of the series first to make up your mind. Herge was a legend and when i first saw 'greg' i thought it was a nickname for Herge, but as they have not paid any respect to Herge with this film it obviously didn't have anything to do with him.