Critical reception

The Adventures of Tintin received generally positive reviews from film critics. The film currently scores 75% on Rotten Tomatoes, the film review aggregate site. Belgian newspaper Le Soir's film critics Daniel Couvreur and Nicolas Crousse called the film "a great popular adventure movie", stating "[the film's] enthusiasm and childhood spirit are unreservedly infectious". Le Figaro praised the film "[which is] crammed with action, humor and suspense". Jordan Mintzer of The Hollywood Reporter was also very positive about the film, describing it as "a good ol' fashioned adventure flick that harkens back to the filmmaker's action-packed, tongue-in-cheek swashbucklers of the 1980s. Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn is a visually dazzling adaptation." Comparing it to another film, Mintzer said Tintin has "an altogether more successful mocap experience than earlier efforts like The Polar Express".Leslie Felperin of Variety wrote "Clearly rejuvenated by his collaboration with producer Peter Jackson, and blessed with a smart script and the best craftsmanship money can buy, Spielberg has fashioned a whiz-bang thrill ride that's largely faithful to the wholesome spirit of his source but still appealing to younger, Tintin-challenged auds." The film was named in New York magazine's David Edelstein's Top 10 List for 2011. It was also included in HitFix's top 10 films of 2011.

La Libre Belgique was, however, a little less enthusiastic, its film critic Alain Lorfèvre calling the film "a technical success, [with] a Tintin vivid as it should be [and] a somewhat excessive Haddock". The Guardian's Xan Brooks gave the film two stars out of five, stating: "while the big set pieces are often exuberantly handled, the human details are sorely wanting. How curious that Hergé achieved more expression with his use of ink-spot eyes and humble line drawings than a bank of computers and an army of animators were able to achieve." Blog Critics writer Ross Miller said, "author Hergé's wonderfully bold and diverse array of characters are a mixed bag when it comes to how they've been translated to the big-screen" and that while the mystery might be "perfectly serviceable" for the film, "the execution of it at times feels languid and stodgy, like it's stumbling along from one eye-catching setpiece to the next." However, he summed it up as, "an enjoyable watch with some spectacular set-pieces, lavish visuals and some fine motion-capture performances." The author of a study of the Tintin books described Hollywood's treatment in this film of its characters and stories as "truly execrable", especially in the way it ignores the books' key idea of inauthenticity. The themes of fakeness and phoniness and counterfeit that drive many of the original plots are replaced in the film with messages that feel "as though we have wandered into a seminar on monetisation through self-empowerment ... It's like making a biopic of Nietzsche that depicts him as a born-again Christian, or of Gandhi as a trigger-happy Rambo blasting his way through the Raj." Steve Rose from The Guardian wrote in an article about one of the movie's biggest criticism by indicating the fact that The Adventures of Tintin as much as the The Polar Express have crossed into the uncanny valley therefore rendering Tintin "too human and not human at all".

Roger Ebert, the internationally renowned film critic, labeled the film as "an ambitious and lively caper, miles smarter than your average 3-D family film". He praised the setting of the film, stating its similarity to the original Tintin comic strips, and seemed to enjoy Spielberg's interpretation of Tintin. He was also pleased with Spielberg's use of 3D, saying that the director employed it as an enhancement to 2-D instead of an attention-grabbing gimmick. He did express a surprisal of how much he enjoyed the movie. His rating was a splendid 3.5 stars.

Manohla Dargis, one of the chief critics for the New York Times, called the movie "a marvel of gee-wizardry and a night’s entertainment that can feel like a lifetime". However, she did note on some of the chief failures of the movie.  The simplicity of the comic strip, she says, is a crucial part of the success of Tintin. She states that it is "an avatar for armchair adventurers". Ms. Dargis additionally remarked that Tintin's appearance "resembled Hergé's creation yet was eerily different as if, like Pinocchio, his transformation into human form had been prematurely interrupted".

Another major fault in the film, pointed out by Manohla Dargis, was how it was so wildly overworked; she exclaims that there is hardly a moment of downtime, a chance to catch your breath or contemplate the tension between the animated Expressionism and the photo-realist flourishes. Nevertheless, she did point out some of the "interludes of cinematic delight", approving the visual imagination employed within numerous exciting scenes of this movie. She gave the film 5 stars out of 10.