During his first ever trip to Comic-Con, director Steven Spielberg unveiled two extended clips from his new movie, The Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn .
Presented in striking 3D, the footage all but eradicated fears that Spielberg’s delve into mo-cap moviemaking would reap the same middling results as Robert Zemeckis’ audience-dividing efforts.
The first brief snippet from the film showed Tintin refusing to open the front door for a man in a bowler hat. Armed with a pistol, Tintin’s warned that “your life is in danger”.
In a moment of perfect timing, bullets punch through the door (as Snowie cowers on the staircase), and the bowler hat chap falls dead to the floor.
In the film’s second clip, we find Tintin now aboard a ship. Along with Captain Archibald Haddock, he fights off aggressive goons, and is chased through the ship’s jangling, grubby interior.
Smoky, atmospheric and very impressive, these clips were sumptuous in their detail (they pretty much match Pixar in that respect) and the human characters look outstanding.
Tintin in particular is a marvel – the subtle expressions that flicker over his features are pretty much perfect.
Even more impressive was the film’s sizzle reel, which offered sneak peeks at what look to be some truly breath-taking set-pieces (“we’ve only got one bullet!” yells Tintin as he takes aim at an attacking plane).
According to Spielberg, this footage was just “the tip of the iceberg, the earliest renderings out of WETA. It has gone beyond this in terms of spectacle”. We just got very excited indeed.
