The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (PG)

There’s a neat gag at the start of Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin when Hergé’s intrepid reporter is having his portrait sketched by a street artist. He is shown the results: a rendition of the brilliantly simple quiffed cartoon figure that made the comic books so iconic. “A good likeness,” says our screen hero.

But the fact is, this big budget, sporadically entertaining movie is far removed from the cheerfully two-dimensional, stripped-down graphics of the original. The characters here are played by well-known actors – with Jamie Bell in the title role – filmed on motion-capture cameras, then painted over with 3D computer animation. Or something. The point is: much of this movie looks kind of weird.

Almost photo-real figures with life-like expressions inhabit a brightly coloured, highly stylised universe, like tiny marionettes let loose in a snow-globe. Sometimes it works. It’s somehow appropriate that the boyish Tintin, with his skin as smooth as soap and curiously sexless aversion to visitors before bedtime (as his landlady warns us), seems less a creature of flesh and blood, more a pixellated avatar.

And once the story kicks in, it’s easy to lose yourself in the Boy’s Own fun, with Tintin’s escapades, such as hooking up with a drunken, disgraced sea captain Haddock (Andy Serkis) and tracking the whereabouts of sunken treasure, whilst avoiding the murderous attentions of rival fortune-seeker Sakharine (Daniel Craig).

With nods to Spielberg’s Indiana Jones films, this is a globetrotting, defiantly old-fashioned tale, with set-pieces staged in glamorous Middle Eastern locations, on rusting, rain-lashed cargo ships and rickety propeller planes. The throwback feel even extends to some refreshingly non-PC references to guns, booze and the odd cigarette.

Spielberg relishes the creative potential of his digital box of tricks. But the awe I had for the ingenuity on display soon gave way to frustration – boredom even. For while Tintin is often playful and witty, it lacks emotional resonance or any sense of peril – in contrast with Jaws (in a homage to Spielberg’s 1975 film, Tintin’s quiff is used to recall a shark’s fin at one point).

All too often the action feels feather-light and calculated. Tintin creates a world in which nothing seems real – that’s a form of escapist entertainment, just not a very good one.