Animated Quick & Dirty Reviews

The Adventures of Tintin (4 out of 5)

Spielberg crafts a thrilling adventures the likes of which hasn't been seen since Raiders of the Lost Ark. Tintin is a whimsical adventure film with some of the best animation to date, incredible motion capture performances seeps out through the digital characters embodying them with life like no other animated film has done. It's a weird juxtaposition against the almost too violent looking action and goofy physical comedy, its the most jarring part of the entire film. Characters survive violent plane crashes, and general get beaten down like Wile E. Coyote, appropriate for an animated film but not when at times the film is so eerily realistic. Tintin also allows Spielberg to be more creative, being freed from a physical camera allows him to whip, pan, stitch, and otherwise craft an experience you just wouldn't be able to produce under real-world circumstances, and the film benefits from this greatly. Inventive action set-pieces, seamless transitions, vast and detailed environments; visually it really is like nothing else out there. Tintin provides a fun and visually striking adventure the likes of which is unfortunately not seen often enough in Hollywood.

Puss in Boots (2 out of 5)

The only prerequisite for enjoying Puss in Boots is to think cats are adorable, if cats chasing lights, drinking milk, and wearing boots doesn't immediately sound appealing then you probably wont find much to enjoy here. Puss in Boots is in essence a heist film, where two count them two cats wearing boots and Humpty Dumpty attempt to steal magic beans from Jack and Jill to break into the giant fortress in the clouds to steal a golden goose egg. Yep those were about four different fairy tales mixed together, and its something Dreamworks has always done well, blending all the famous children stories into a bizarre highly referential world. For a movie called Puss in Boots, Puss is really second banana to the real star, Humpty "Alexander" Dumpty. Humpty wonderfully voiced by Zach Galifianakis steals every scene he is in, and is generally a more sympathetic character than Puss too. The movie relies too heavily on predictable and shallow jokes which only raised a single smile from me the entire length of the film. Maybe I'm just a cold-hearted cynic but Puss in Boots did absolutely nothing for me, and only goes to prove my theory that 90% of movies aimed at children are trash and its a sad fact, go see The Muppets or a Pixar film, cause there is nothing of value in this cheap Shrek spin-off cash-in.