You have to read the book

Rating: 9/10 (16 December 2011)

The Selznick book is considered a modern children's classic. If you read it, you will see how it inspired the film. The opening paragraphs of the book are, almost word for word, the script for the opening scene of the camera soaring down from the sky into and through the railroad terminal. The book, itself, is a very unusual construct. Some pages have only a few sentences of text followed by pages that advance the story with nothing but drawings. Scorcese was very true to both the visual and textual style of the book.
The film, itself, is full of great film and stage actors in small rolls that are pure gems. There is more depth to the characters than in the typical family film.
As to the 3D, the director shows how it can add to the film without distracting from the art of telling a story. Some reviewers seem underwhelmed by the 3D because objects don't jump off the screen, but that's the point. It adds depth to the story, but does not drive the story. The scenes, especially those set among the clockworks, would look too busy and confusing without the 3D camera layering the moving objects. The Scorcese technique of following his actors down hallways, up staircases and through crowds becomes stunning with the 3D camera. If you want to know how good this 3D is, see it as I did, in a theater that used the opportunity of an audience with 3D glasses to precede the feature presentation with trailers for a half dozen current and upcoming 3D films. Watch those, then watch Hugo, and see how Scorcese has, as James Cameron has said, advanced the art of 3D beyond any place it has ever been.