Good-Looking but Dreary

Rating: 5/10 (26 December 2012)

After the deaths of his father and uncle, a little boy lives inside a big clock in a train station in 1930s Paris. In this visually opulent film, Scorsese pays homage to early cinema, but it's a case of all dressed up with nowhere to go. It lacks the script to make a compelling narrative out of the basic premise and it goes on much too long. The story of the automaton that the boy's father left to him is supposed to be touching, but it becomes dreary. There are too many shots of the machinery behind the clock. The subplot involving Cohen is supposed to be funny but comes across as lame. Kingsley is pretty good. It's good to see Lee still acting. Mortimer is wasted in a meaningless role.