The Adventures of Tintin: A serviceable adventure

World famous reporter Tintin and his trusty dog Snowy stumble into an adventure after he purchases a mysterious old model of a ship called the Unicorn. Along the way he must escape from the nefarious Sakharine and help Captain Haddock find his ancestors' missing treasure.

There certainly was plenty of adventure and excitement to be had in the film. Director Steven Spielberg tried to craft the title character into an Indiana Jones - like hero, putting him into dangerous situations in which he had to use his wits (and his muscle) to escape. However, if you took away the motorcycle chases, narrow escapes, and other action sequences the film essentially fell flat as its story and characters were dull and bland. One of the most glaring missteps was the fact that the audience was never given Tintin's backstory. It is explained that he is a famous reporter but that was it. It's understood that, to keep the flow of the story going, there was no need to spend a half and hour explaining how Tintin got his start as a reporter, how he found Snowy or how his hair is able to maintain its shape while he is dodging bullets but little nuggets of information here and there would have helped. The story seemed to focus more on Captain Haddock and his tale of redemption. And while that served to provide the audience with a valuable life lesson, the rest of the film was cheapened by poor storytelling and bad humor that lessened its potential impact.

The Adventures of Tintin contained breathtaking animation and enough excitement to keep audience members of all ages engrossed but it lacked the solid storytelling of those classic Disney Pixar films.

Grade: C

Attack the Block: (or not)

When a group of extraterrestrials invades a South London neighborhood, a teen gang decides to take up arms in order to fight them. But they soon learn that this is a task that is easier said than done.

Attack the Block certainly put a different spin on the alien invasion film, showing the audience what would happen if aliens invaded the "wrong part" of South London but it's too bad the members of the teen gang that decided to take them on was such a group of unlikable characters that "Attack" never amounted to anything other than a daft waste of time. Moses, Pest, Biggz and the rest of the bunch were the kind of kids that you hope your own children never turned out to be. They smoked weed, cursed and were always in troubled with the law, as such only 16 to 18 year old boys could relate to them while the rest of the audience found them to be vulgar and boorish. When the audience cannot relate to or emotionally connect with the protagonists of the film, then it really just becomes an exercise of watching the clock and hoping the film ends sooner rather than later so they get on to more interesting things (as it was with this film).

Obnoxious characters, flat jokes and an insipid story are what you can expect if you decide to watch Attack the Block.

Grade: D

Paul: A close encounter of the hilarious kind!

Graeme and Clive are two sci-fi fanatics that are on a quest to find out what is really going on in Area 51. But on their way to investigate they run into an actual visitor from another planet named Paul, who is on the run from the authorities. Together they hatch a scheme to get Paul back to his mother ship and back home.

Paul was essentially a buddy road trip film that happened to have an alien and some other screwball shenanigans added in to make it atypical for the genre. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost were hilarious as Graeme and Clive respectively, showing the same kind of comic talent and timing that made the other flims which they have starred in together (Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) memorable comedic fare. There were plenty of sight gags, thinly veiled references to other classic sci-fi films (the audience was finally shown who truly inspired Stephen Spielberg to create E.T.) and just enough dry "British" humor to cause the audience to geniuely chuckle throughout. But the best (and perhaps most unexpected) part of the film was the fact that title character (voice by Seth Rogen) was so entertaining, effective and believable. Usually when one thinks of a character that is completely CGI unfortunate mistakes like Jar Jar Binks pop into their heads, but Paul was different. He was different in that he did not act like one would expect a visitor from another world to. He wasn't screaming, "take me to your leader" or threatening passers-by with death rays, he just seemed like a regular person. He smoked, cursed and acted crude at points but there was a heart to him which made him endearing. Director Greg Mottola was wise to seize upon this and accenutate those moments where Paul, Graeme and Clive were just hanging out having a good time because those were the moments where the audience could gravitate toward the guys and the quest they were on.

This film was one of those rare comedies that was actually funny, and it is definitely worth a look.

Grade: B