'Hugo' Review (2011)
Scorsese's ode to cinema loses a little of its magic in the telling
Photo: Paramount Pictures
Hugo may be a film unlike any Martin Scorsese has ever directed, but it's clearly close to his heart. Scorsese has been a frontrunner when it comes to restoring classic films, having recently made headlines with his immaculate restoration of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Red Shoes and now he's gone all the way back to the beginning, using the films of special effects pioneer George Melies to guide the heart of Hugo, adapted from Brian Selznick's children's book by John Logan, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Scorsese's The Aviator. With the pieces and passion clearly in place, the question is whether or not they all came together.
The cast includes Sacha Baron Cohen, Ben Kingsley, Asa Butterfield, Chloe Moretz, Jude Law, Ray Winstone, Christopher Lee, Frances De La Tour, Richard Griffiths, Mathieu Amalric, Emily Mortimer and Michael Stuhlbarg. For more information on this film including pictures, trailers and a detailed synopsis choose from the following menu.
Review
"Hugo" is a Paramount Pictures release, directed by Martin Scorsese and is rated PG for mild thematic material, some action/peril and smoking. The running time is 2 hours 7 minutes.
You see, Hugo's father (Jude Law) recently passed away and his drunken uncle (Ray Winstone), whose job it was to ensure the clocks in the train station kept the right time, took him in. However, Hugo's uncle hasn't been seen for some time and to keep from being thrown into an orphanage, Hugo does what he can to survive and conceal his existence by living inside the station walls and making sure the clocks are always on time.
However, it's not all hiding and thieving croissants for Hugo. He has a secret; a mechanical man he and his father were trying to fix when he passed away and Hugo still hasn't given up, believing something magical will happen once it finally comes to life. As it turns out, one particular shop in the station has caught his attention. It's a toy shop where the owner (Ben Kingsley) makes and sells mechanical wind-up toys, perfect gadgets, sure to contain just the parts he needs.
Parts, though, seem to be the least of Hugo's problems as only a heart-shaped key will ever finish the repair job. It's a key he can't forge, but it's closer than he initially thinks.
As Hugo gets in trouble with the toy store owner and attempts to avoid the eccentric station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen), he finds friendship in the toy store owner's goddaughter Isabelle (Chloe Moretz). Isabelle would normally look right passed someone like Hugo, dirty and disheveled from his greasy living environments, but she sees adventure in him and that's just what she's been looking for.
The two quickly form a bond, Isabelle introducing Hugo to books and he introduces her to the movies, sneaking her into a showing of Harold Lloyd's Safety Last!, which serves as just one of the inspirations from the past Scorsese relies on and evokes later in the film. Many such inspirations he hints at before homaging them as if to make sure the audience is never left behind.
In many ways Hugo feels like a cinematic history lesson as the plot thickens and Melies's classic silent film A Trip to the Moon (1898) and it's iconic image of a rocket ship wedged in the eye socket of the Man in the Moon plays a large role in the film's plot. Melies becomes a focal point, detailing his work as a magician, his discovery of moving pictures at the hands of the Lumiere brothers and the construction of his glass-walled movie studio.
Scorsese has made a loving ode to classic cinema with a certain measure of whimsy, fantasy and small doses of comedy, but the magic that inspired the film doesn't seem to have found its way fully into Logan's adaptation of Selznick's story. It's a storybook feature and it feels as if it's been bloated into feature length form in an attempt to wow the audience with 3D spectacle as Scorsese uses today's technical advances to appropriately tell the story of a technical pioneer. Problem for me was that I wasn't necessarily wowed or felt as if I was seeing something I hadn't seen before, which I'm sure was the case when Melies was screening his film in the late 1800s.
As is most often the case, Robert Richardson's cinematography is quite beautiful with a deep and rich color palette, although wide shots of Paris have a glossy, fake appearance as do other portions of the film as will happen with such heavily CG-ed environments.
Beyond the late cinematic history lesson of Melies, the one aspect of the film that stuck out more than any other was the performance by Ben Kingsley, who first appears as a weathered man that has given up on the world, but in an instant exhibits a sparkle of life in his eyes so recognizable it's as if it was there the whole time.
However, Kingsley's performance can't distract from what is a rather flimsy story, which, at times, felt rushed as the history lesson and 3D imagery seemed to become more important than the story. Hugo is a film that after seeing it once I don't need to see it again. I wasn't wowed enough by the imagery or moved to any measure by the story. I appreciate Scorsese's passion and he certainly found a story where he can pass that on to others, but in the end I felt the overall story gave way to that passion and some of the magic was lost.
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Once again, I find myself in agreement. The problem, for me, was the story. There just wasn't enough there there. So I was left with Kingsley's beautiful performance and some stunning cinematography. It wasn't enough for me.
I agree wholeheartedly and have the same complaints as you. Our reviews are actually quite similar.
http://www.filmmisery.com/2011/11/review-hugo-2011/10244/
I think Hugo will be a Best Picture Nominee. So far, critics (other than you and a few others) have fallen in love with it. They have been praising it and calling it magical. It currently holds a 97% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Does anyone think that it will be a Best Pic Nominee? Based on what you are hearing from critics not your own opinion.
"Everyone" loved Inception, too, but I thought it was empty with nice CGI.
I haven't seen everything else but my guess is if there are 7 or less Best Picture noms Hugo won't make it. If there are more than 7 then it has a very good chance.
I think it has more than decent shot to be nominated (even with 7 noms). It'a beautiful, well made fantasy movie with some emotional depth, good performance, Martin S. behind camera – and yes, critics LOVE it, it has 97% and 8.4 average rating on RT. So, yeah, it has more chances than movies like Help, Ides for March, J. Edgar…
Of course this is just an opinion, but I don't think it has more of a chance than The Help. The Help has alot going for it, most of all it's box office performance which is reminiscent of The Blind Side. Plus of course it covers an important historical issue which is very much Oscar ground.
As for J Edgar, it seems to have very little to no chance looking at the abysmal reception it got.
Another movie where the story takes place in a city, in this case Paris, and the characters speak a different language rather than the one spoken in that very city/country? That, to me, is a down factor already. Shameful.
Thanks so much for writing a review that does not give the plot away. The majority of reviewers are not that considerate.
I find it odd that the main characters couldn't have at least spoken English with a French accent. (This also happened in the "Madeline" movie.)
I liked the movie a lot. It captivated me and my children, who are elementary to high school age. We didn't find it slow going (though I thought the humor was more for the kids than adults). I do hope it is nominated for best picture, and I hope Ben Kingsley wins for best supporting actor.
Spot on review. This film looks wonderful and there are some great performances – I especially enjoyed Sacha Baron Cohen's character as he had a journey worth investing in. However, as you say there was nowhere near enough story to fill what felt like more than 2 hours. Considering the theme of time present throughout I spent a lot of time looking at my watch.
I think the problem is it got stuck between being a homage to Melies and Hugo's story. It was structurally hamstrung also. For example: the dramatic scene at the start when arguing over the notebook was lost emotionally because we knew nothing about the two characters at this stage.
Someone mentioned INCEPTION above but that had enough plot for three films and while the characters were very much ciphers to the concept at least there was an abundance of surprises and twists to support the fantastic visuals.
Scorcese is one of the greatest filmmakers of all time and this is one of his most visually stunning films, however, emotionally and dramatically it was at times, like watching beautiful paint dry.
I'd give it a B+. I really loved this film. The only big glaring problem to me was that some sequences dragged on way too long. Plus the 3D wasn't worth it at all. Just go see it in "2D"
I think marty has taken the blue & orange colorscheme trend of the last few years to the extreme and hopefully killed it for good.
Saw this in 2d and hated it. A poor man's jeunet.