A street urchin with a flair for clocks gets a history lesson in film mastery.

Rating: 5/10 (3 March 2012)

This review is only a spoiler if you're indoctrinated into praising the pedantic pace of Martin Scorcese. This is not a children's movie. Not because there's violence, nudity, coarse language or an adult theme. It' isn't for children because they have short attention spans. By the time Hugo and Isabel find the key to the automaton (that starts the story), any normal child would have quit caring why he was in the theater, long ago, and started some annoying tactic to ensure his removal. Sparse flashbacks to early film making might interest someone old enough to remember how special effects were set up prior to universal CGI, but a kid expects to see the results and let those who attempt to entertain him worry about how it was done. George Melies was a magician who used the new phenomenon of film to synergize his shows. He was brilliant, and so were his movies. That's what you can try telling an eight year old who thinks he's going to see a young boy outsmart the adults who are trying to send him off to an orphanage. But that won't work long enough to allow you to see where this film is going. But remember this is Martin Scorcese! (What gave you the idea that it was going somewhere?) "Will the clock-robot become a friend of Hugo, like E.T, and help him with supernatural uncanniness (because he's taken on the consciousness of Hugo's departed father)?" If you're determined to stay in the theater, suggestions like that might string your child along until he falls asleep. But then there's the question of you staying awake, amidst the ticking and talking and waiting for the tedious details of the premise to show some pay-off for having been so exacting.
Ben Kingsley's character goes to great lengths to stop Hugo from making a well-kept secret well-known. For what he's willing to do to Hugo, it must be an ugly, ugly story - one would think. In terms of "what really happened to George Melius?", one answer might be that he was heartbroken because his great efforts were no longer appreciated by the public. And if that was true n the 1930s, then Scorcese has a pay-off that can that generate enough bang for your buck to warrant an interest now. But to go into that would constitute a spoiler. Don't take a child to this movie. Adults can argue the artistic merits of Martin Scorcese in the same way they argue the merits of Jackson Pollack, but don't do that to a kid.