There's a moment in the film where Cuthbert Calculus is mesmerized by the sight of a beautiful blue orange glowing in the darkness of an improvised laboratory. Then his companion of misfortune and distinguished colleague of scientific persuasion, Professor Zalamea lets him taste the orange, Calculus immediately spits it. These blue oranges look great but they're just impossible to swallow. Fittingly enough, the same can be said about the second opus of Tintin's live-action adventures: "The Blue Oranges", a film cruelly underwritten that can't be saved from mediocrity despite the efforts of Jean-Pierre Talbot, the only good thing about the film (along with Calculus).
The film started well, the bit with the real fake TV program set the tone and gave the blue orange a sort of "realistic" dimension contextualizing them with the issue of hunger in the world, but it doesn't take too long before you know you'll have to tone down your "quality" I order to enjoy it, and even then, there's not much to enjoy. It's a real pity that "Tintin and the Blue Oranges" never really hold up to the coolness of its intriguing title. The film was made three years after the first one but I can see why it didn't do better at the box-office, the first didn't benefit from an elaborate plot but it had a strong set-up and a strong bond between Tintin and Haddock. In "Orange", Talbot's performance is somewhat ruined by the overacting of Jean Bouise as Captain Haddock, a shame because the chemistry with George Wilson made the first film.
Jean Bouise is a good actor but while George Wilson's overacting was never at the expenses of the story, Bouise plays his Haddock as if he thought the captain was a previous commedia del arte actor, amplifying every syllabus, gesticulating for any reason, and using any moment as an excuse for some loud baritone tantrums. His performance could have worked if the film was meant as a comedy but not when the other actors play their roles seriously. Felix Fernandex is a fine copy of Cuthbert Calculus but Bouise makes Calculus more endurable. Again, this is less a comment on Bouise's talent as the man was notorious for playing dark and brooding characters but let's just say he didn't take the right angle.
But it's not as if the story deserved the best acting anyway, so maybe he's the one reason to watch the film after all. The film is a series of setups and comical premise that always fall flat, the Thompson gags are pretty lame even by the days' standards. And when a young Spanish kid meets Tintin and says "Tintin and Milou", you've got to wonder how come he knows them since the film is set in a universe where Tintin isn't a comic book character. There are a few interesting moments, the encounter with the Castafiore and the interactions between Professors Calculus and the Spanish professors provide a few interesting moments but the film doesn't even swim in the same waters than Golden Fleece.
Don't get me started on the climax, the whole plot leads to some evil emir and the intervention of a bunch of kids save the day and we're supposed to be laughing. I won't even mention the fact that being Moroccan, I could spot the accent of the guys who were supposed to be from the Arab Peninsula. Anyway, there's a sort of naivety in the film that could have been excusable if the plot wasn't so thin and if the first film was if the same caliber, but overall, comparing the two on the sole basis that they're live-action adaptation of Tintin would be unfair, these are apples and oranges, and not blue one.
The film started well, the bit with the real fake TV program set the tone and gave the blue orange a sort of "realistic" dimension contextualizing them with the issue of hunger in the world, but it doesn't take too long before you know you'll have to tone down your "quality" I order to enjoy it, and even then, there's not much to enjoy. It's a real pity that "Tintin and the Blue Oranges" never really hold up to the coolness of its intriguing title. The film was made three years after the first one but I can see why it didn't do better at the box-office, the first didn't benefit from an elaborate plot but it had a strong set-up and a strong bond between Tintin and Haddock. In "Orange", Talbot's performance is somewhat ruined by the overacting of Jean Bouise as Captain Haddock, a shame because the chemistry with George Wilson made the first film.
Jean Bouise is a good actor but while George Wilson's overacting was never at the expenses of the story, Bouise plays his Haddock as if he thought the captain was a previous commedia del arte actor, amplifying every syllabus, gesticulating for any reason, and using any moment as an excuse for some loud baritone tantrums. His performance could have worked if the film was meant as a comedy but not when the other actors play their roles seriously. Felix Fernandex is a fine copy of Cuthbert Calculus but Bouise makes Calculus more endurable. Again, this is less a comment on Bouise's talent as the man was notorious for playing dark and brooding characters but let's just say he didn't take the right angle.
But it's not as if the story deserved the best acting anyway, so maybe he's the one reason to watch the film after all. The film is a series of setups and comical premise that always fall flat, the Thompson gags are pretty lame even by the days' standards. And when a young Spanish kid meets Tintin and says "Tintin and Milou", you've got to wonder how come he knows them since the film is set in a universe where Tintin isn't a comic book character. There are a few interesting moments, the encounter with the Castafiore and the interactions between Professors Calculus and the Spanish professors provide a few interesting moments but the film doesn't even swim in the same waters than Golden Fleece.
Don't get me started on the climax, the whole plot leads to some evil emir and the intervention of a bunch of kids save the day and we're supposed to be laughing. I won't even mention the fact that being Moroccan, I could spot the accent of the guys who were supposed to be from the Arab Peninsula. Anyway, there's a sort of naivety in the film that could have been excusable if the plot wasn't so thin and if the first film was if the same caliber, but overall, comparing the two on the sole basis that they're live-action adaptation of Tintin would be unfair, these are apples and oranges, and not blue one.