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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Flight 714: Non-stop entertaining adventure, April 14, 2004
This review is from: Flight 714 (The Adventures of Tintin) (Paperback)
Yet again, we get a glimpse of Herge's creative genius in this action-packed Tintin adventure. This Tintin adventure is unlike any other simply because it has hints of being based on some sort of a magical success-formula, not unlike one that would ensure a James Bond movie box-office hit! In sort, it features an eccentric millionaire, an airplane hijacking, a secret island base of Tintin's archrival- the evil Rastapopulous, the return of Captain Haddock's nemesis- Allan (from "The Crab with the Golden Claws", "The Red Sea Sharks"), and also the return of a friend-Skut (from "The Red Sea Sharks"), lot's of gunmen, volcano eruptions, and even a mysterious alien encounter. The plot is quite simple: Rastapopulous wishes to obtain millionaire Lazslo Carreidas's fortune by kidnapping him and getting him to, rather willing fully, reveal his wealth-related secrets- of course with the aid of a scientist's "truth formula" injection. However, getting Tintin, Captain Haddock, Snowy, and Professor Calculus into the picture changes the simplicity of the equation. The artwork, as is the case with the last Tintin book (Tintin and the Picaros), is simply outstanding among all Tintin books-which are already top quality in the first place! One scene I fondly remember is that of Allan catching sight of a monkey and then trying to recall who it reminds him of (based on the shape of its nose), and then realizing that it reminds him of none other than his boss-Rastapopulous. Herge's drawing of Allan's facial expressions (and even Rastapopulous's, as he seems to realize what's in Allan's mind) in this sequence, yet again, displays how effortlessly he could make his characters "talk" to the reader. It is peculiar to note how different this adventure is to its preceding one-The Castafiore Emerald, in which, our heroes don't even leave Marlinshire. Perhaps, Herge himself longed for Tintin to go on another exciting adventure. Definitely, one of the best Tintin stories, great for all ages and very entertaining!!!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A little bit of everything in the penultimate Tintin tale, February 22, 2003
This review is from: Flight 714 (The Adventures of Tintin) (Paperback)
"Flight 714" is sort of the generic Adventure of Tintin, with a little bit of everything that Hergé put into his stories to make this one of the landmark comic book series since Cortes discovered pre-Columbian picture manuscripts in 1519. A Qantas Boeing 707, Flight 714 from London touches down at Kemajoran Airport in Djakarta, java, last stop before Sydney, Australia. Disembarking is our hero, Snowy, Captain Haddock, and Professor Calculus. As they stretch their legs the good Captain spots a forlorn figure and slips a $5 bill into the man's hat. Of course no good deed of Haddock's goes unpunished and it turns out the old man is Mr. Carreidas, "The millionaire who never laughs." Well, Professor Calculus quickly takes care of that and Carreidas insists on flying Tintin and his friends to Australia on his special jet. Haddock is looking forward to a pleasure trip, an ordinary flight and no adventures, but fate has something else in mind. "Flight 714," which actually does not have a single panel of the titular plane being anyplace other than on the ground, offers up a hijacking, a cutting edge prototype means of transportation, an exotic island in the middle of nowhere, an evil scientist with truth serum, a gigantic stone head pagan idol, a threatening lava flow, the return of an old familiar villain, a space ship, and Tintin running around a lot with a gun. Pretty much all of these elements have popped up in the previous twenty Adventures of Tintin that Hergé had told over the previous decades. For that reason this particular adventure strikes me as something of a curtain call for Tintin and his friends, even though this is the penultimate tale and the Thom(p)sons are no place to be seen. The chief charm is that Calculus has somebody new to tangle with in Carriedas, thereby relieving Captain Haddock of the responsibility for testing the eccentric professor's patience. So I see "Flight 714" as being an average offering from Hergé, which still means it is an above average comic book adventure. I only have one Adventure of Tintin left to read and I want to treasure the moment when I choose to find out how it all ends.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
somewhat different from the usual tipe. facsinating., July 1, 1997
By A Customer
This review is from: Flight 714 (The Adventures of Tintin) (Paperback)
Flight 714 is offbeat, considering the tintin stories are
usually somewhat believable. The story starts off quite normal
but progresses into a science fiction like story wuich, I think,
is a mix of Indiana jones and a light version of the X-files. To
more picky readers, this book would probably be rated quite
low, but to me, I think herge was just simply expressing
himself into the book in a different way than ever before.
P.S.: While writing the book just before this one, Herge
suffered a majore depretion, and perhapps he changed
his style of storytelling
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