Story
The Adventures of Tintin is the first in a trilogy of Tintin movies. This movie begins when Tintin (voice of Jamie Bell) buys a model of an old sailing ship called the Unicorn. The ship itself disappeared at sea over 300 years before, possibly carrying treasure. The sinister Ivanovich Sakharine (voice of Daniel Craig) wants to buy the model ship, but Tintin refuses to sell it.By chance, Tintin discovers a metal cylinder hidden in the model ship. The cylinder contains a parchment scroll that has a strange riddle written on it and a series of seemingly meaningless numbers. It turns out that three model ships were made, and each has a hidden scroll. Together the three scrolls show the location of the sunken Unicorn’s treasure. Sakharine has one scroll, and Tintin now has another.Sakharine kidnaps Tintin and imprisons him aboard the cargo ship Karaboudjan. Tintin escapes along with the always drunk Captain Archibald Haddock (voice of Andy Serkis). Tintin and Haddock make their way to Morocco, where a sheikh holds the third model ship. Here their adventures continue.
Themes
Pirates; curses; revenge; alcoholism
Violence
Tintin contains cartoon action violence. There’s not much blood and gore, but people do get killed. For example:
Sexual references
This movie contains mild sexual references. For example:
- A sailor sleeps with a rat between his hands. Captain Haddock tells Tintin that the man was sacked from his previous job because of his ‘animal husbandry’.
- A man sees a female opera singer and says, ‘What a dish’.
Alcohol, drugs and other substances
This movie shows some use of substances. For example:
- A man smokes a cigarette.
- Many characters say things about Captain Haddock’s alcoholism, which runs in his family. Captain Haddock is very drunk most of the time and drinks alcohol a lot. He gets violent and causes life-threatening situations because of his drunkenness.
- Thugs hold a drug-soaked cloth over Tintin’s mouth, which makes him unconscious.
Nudity and sexual activity
None of concern
Product placement
None of concern
Coarse language
Throughout the movie, characters use funny words in place of more coarse language. The movie also contains some name-calling and put-downs.
Ideas to discuss with your children
The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn is a motion-capture animated action adventure directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by Peter Jackson. The movie targets a wide-ranging audience from seven years up to adults. Younger children might find the movie’s content too intense. Its running time of 107 minutes is also quite long.
The main message from this movie is that if you care about something, you should fight for it and never give up.
Values in this movie that you could reinforce with your children include never giving up. For example, Tintin is a journalist who never gives up when he’s chasing a story, no matter what happens.
Although Captain Haddock’s alcoholism is played for comedy, you could talk with your children about the real-life physical, emotional and financial consequences of alcoholism, particularly when it runs in families.