Genre: Action, Animation    Rated: PG
Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Daniel Craig

Mystery.  Pirates.  Globe-trotting adventure.  A dog. What more could you ask for in a movie?

How about Steven Spielberg (E.T., Indiana Jones) and Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings trilogy) working together? The amazing result of this dream duo is The Adventures of Tintin, Spielberg’s first animated venture on the big screen. Tintin impresses as a can’t-miss, wonderfully creative, just-plain-fun-in-the-theater action adventure. Tintin is based on a series of classic comic books created by Belgian artist Georges Remi, who wrote the comics under the pen name Hergé. Spielberg and Jackson pulled from three of the comics to create the storyline for Tintin: “The Secret of the Unicorn,” “The Crab with the Golden Claws,” and “Red Rackham’s Treasure.”

The main character Tintin (played by Jamie Bell) is a reporter who has solved many crimes around the world. Accompanying Tintin is his adorable sidekick, a dog named Snowy, who happens to steal scenes anytime he’s on.

The mystery begins right from the start. In the opening minutes of the movie, Tintin buys a famous model ship of “The Unicorn” off the streets of Belgium. He is immediately approached by two men, one warning him of its dangers and the other, a Mr. Sakharine (Daniel Craig), offering to buy the ship from him at any cost. After declining, Tintin’s interest in his newly acquired model ship is piqued. After some research, Tintin finds out that The Unicorn, captained by Sir Frances Haddock, had been carrying a secret cargo and had sunk over 300 years ago after being attacked by pirates.

The following night, Tintin is captured and thrown on a boat headed out to sea by the movie’s villain, Sakharine. After escaping (with Snowy’s help, of course) he stumbles into the captain’s cabin where he meets the drunken Captain Haddock (a hilarious Andy Serkis), whose crew had been paid by Sakharine to turn on him. Tintin and Haddock are able to fight their way off the boat and escape. Haddock becomes Tintin’s traveling companion—and turns out to possibly be the only person who can find the true location of The Unicorn. From there, they’re stranded in the middle of the ocean, fly through a deadly storm, crash land in the Sahara desert, and blowing-up a dam (by accident) for a climactic and astonishingly monumental chase scene through a Moroccan town. Tintin and Haddock are driven by one thing: figure out the location of the Unicorn and its hidden treasure before Sakharine and his group does.

The motion-capture animation is nothing short of spectacular. This is the first motion-capture movie where everything felt very natural and realistic—and honestly, the first motion capture film where the characters didn’t look odd and creepy (see 2009’s A Christmas Carol or 2007’s Beowulf). Characters’ eyes, both human and canine, weren’t hollow and lifeless; and movement wasn’t robotic and “fake.” If you happen to catch Tintin in 3-D, some scenes in the movie move so fast it feels more like you’re on a Disney Motion roller coaster ride rather than in a movie theater.

According to the MPAA, The Adventures of Tintin is rated “PG for adventure action violence, some drunkenness and brief smoking.” The fighting in the action scenes may be a bit much for younger viewers. Bloody fingerprints are shown briefly on a newspaper after a man is shot—the only blood audiences see in the movie. Captain Haddock is drunk for half of the movie and often has a bottle of whiskey in his hand. However, Tintin makes it clear throughout the movie it’s important for him to sober up. By the end, the captain is able to make a distinct decision to abstain from drinking even in hard times.

Overall, Spielberg and Jackson did a great job staying true to the original comic books and characters. If you want an action adventure movie that is fun for the whole family, then I would highly recommend The Adventures of Tintin.  As many successful films do, Tintin sets us up for a sequel: As Tintin says at the end of the movie, “How’s your thirst for adventure Captain?” Captain Haddock replies, “Unquenchable”!

To learn more about author April Kruger, visit Cross Shadow Productions

Philippians 3:12-14 In The Adventures of Tintin, Captain Haddock tells Tintin: “There are plenty of others willing to call you a failure. A fool. A loser. A hopeless souse. Don't you ever say it of yourself. You send out the wrong signal—that is what people pick up. Don't you understand? You care about something, you fight for it. You hit a wall, you push through it. There's something you need to know about failure, Tintin. You can never let it defeat you.” Failure. Something every person has experienced. The Bible says that we’re all sinners and fall short of the glory of God—that we’re all prone to failure. However, the Good News is with Christ’s help we can overcome it. Stores today are filled with self-help books. Look inward for strength, meditate for peace, books about how to win friends and earn more by working less. To some people, failure is the worst possible thing that can happen to them. The question is how do you handle it? Do you let it defeat you or do you learn from your failures? Philippians 3:12-14 NLT says, “I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection.” … “Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.” Don’t let failure get you discouraged! Try to find a Bible hero who didn’t fail: David had his moments on a rooftop. Moses disobeyed and never found the Promised Land he sought. Abraham lied to marry a girl he wanted instead of the one who he was supposed to. Paul killed Christians. All of these, to a man, are considered standards that we look to. “a man after God’s heart,” “true hero of the faith,” or “the father of nations.” Failing might be the only thing that gets on back the right track—and finding success with God’s plan. The key is to failing is to learn from it and move on, keeping your focus on the goal, which is to live as Jesus lived. Here are some questions for you to think about: • Find someone you trust, and talk to them about a failure you’ve had. Talk about the details, the feelings, the hurt pride, the embarrassment—and how you dealt with that failure. • How can you better respond to failing? • Did you learn anything about God’s plan for your life from what you would consider a “failure”?

Genre: Animation, Comedy    Rated: PG
James McAvoy, Hugh Laurie, Jim Broadbent, Bill Nighy, Ashley Jensen

Santa’s getting old. After 70 deliveries, he’s the figurehead of what is now a large package-delivering corporation, run (in-part) by his two children, Steve (voiced perfectly by House M.D. Hugh Laurie) and Arthur (voiced by James McAvoy of Mr. Tumnus and Professor X fame). Steve runs the North Pole as a military command center, with thousands of commando elves at his disposal, the latest technology, and a goatee cut in the shape of a Christmas tree. While Steve is all-go no-quit, Arthur is a bit bumbling, afraid of heights, things that go fast, and buttons. He works in the Letters Division, reading all of the letters kids write to Santa—and answering every one.

In the incredibly shot opening sequence, all of the toys and presents are delivered on time, in perfect Mission Impossible fashion. Harnessed elves descend from a cloaked ship, delivering perfectly wrapped packages to an entire city in less than eight minutes. Elves drinking (not coffee) hot chocolate mounded with marshmallows chart and graph every movement with Google Earth-like precision. However, upon Arthur’s stumbling entrance into Command Central (and through a series of unpredictably small events) one toy is accidentally knocked over into a pile of old, discarded wrapping and missed.

That means one child won’t get a present. One child has been forgotten at Christmas.

Once the mistake has been found, Steve and Santa (Jim Broadbent) brush it off as just one present missed. There isn’t time to deliver it anyway. Arthur is stunned, and decides to take matters into his own hands. From there, it’s up to him, GrandSanta (Bill Nighy), and Scottish-burred elf Bryony (Ashley Jensen) to deliver the last package to the child and keep the magic and wonder of Santa alive.

From the opening sequence to the credits, this movie is an absolute delight. I can’t say enough good things about it. From Aardman Studios (Wallace and Gromit, Flushed Away), Arthur Christmas is sit up at the edge of your seat funny, from everything in the background you don’t catch the first time around (there’s a canister in GrandSanta’s reindeer stable marked “Chimney Lube”) to the ridiculously clever writing and over the top accents. There’s something about an elf in a kilt with a thick Scottish brogue that cracks me up every time.

The story is deep, the characters are layered, and the animation, like Pixar, doesn’t get in the way. At times you actually forget you’re watching animation, and the characters become absolutely real. Not only that, Aardman has a great sense of pacing and action, right down to the whip zooms and camera angles.

The only things I would say (and honestly, it’s only two) are two jokes that zipped right over the heads of the kids, but were pushing the envelope. One is from GrandSanta (whose lines made me laugh out loud throughout the entire movie) who lands in what he thinks is France—but is actually Africa. He starts speaking broken French with an English accent, and asks where the lingerie department is. The other is a Chihuahua, who Arthur encounters in a house. Arthur wears light-up moose slippers, and the Chihuahua latches on and does what every dog does to a guest’s leg if it wants to completely embarrass it’s owner. Arthur quips, “Wow, he likes my slippers even more than I do.”

Two over-the-head jokes in an otherwise perfect movie. This is a must-see in the theater. Two days later, my kids are still talking about how good it was—even my four year old, which is really saying something.

Two things jumped out at me from Arthur Christmas. Arthur can’t understand why his dad and his brother are willing to let one child go un-presented. Out of the eight billion presents delivered, only one present got missed. In any corporation, a 0.000000000125% margin for error would be seen as absolute success. But not to Arthur. Every child is important. In Luke 15, Jesus told a story about a famer who had one hundred sheep. Ninety-nine of them were safe, cared for, penned and guarded, but one got lost. Jesus asked, “What will the shepherd do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness to go search for the one until he finds it?” Jesus was making the point that heaven rejoices over the one lost-now-found sinner more than the ninety-nine who are already safe. To Arthur, every child deserves Santa. Every child deserves that warm-cheeked feeling of coming down to the tree, ripping open a present, and finding their young heart’s desire beneath the wrappings. To Jesus, every soul deserves the same. Every soul deserves that warm-cheeked feeling of coming to the cross, ripping open their hearts, and finding salvation in the arms of a loving savior. The other line that struck me was repeated several times by Byrony, the elf (who works in the wrapping division) who helps Arthur. She says, “There’s always time for a bow.” No matter what the circumstance or situation, gift-wrapping an out-of-control bike speeding down a snowy hill or facing off against lions in the African savannah, there’s always time to top the gift off with a bow. Translation? No matter what you’re facing, what trial or tribulation, there’s always time to take time for joy. Though the sorrow may last for the night, the Bible tells us, joy comes in the morning. For us as Christians, it’s imperative that we take time to celebrate—our lives, our families, our Jesus. There’s always time for a bow. Some questions: Like in Arthur Christmas, is there one person you know who is a bit lost? What can you do to bring them back home? What are three things, right now, that you can celebrate? Where are three “joyful” things in your life? This season, challenge yourself to take time. Whether it be to laugh at a great movie or sit with family by the fire, take “you” time. You give to others all week, all month, all year, but this season, take time for you. You’ll find it might just be the best present of the year!