An Oscar-grab for Scorcese, 2 hours of boredom for viewers

Rating: 2/10 (5 March 2012)

This was a beautiful wrapper with absolutely nothing inside it. I'll give "Hugo" this: it's breathtakingly beautiful. Best cinematography, no doubt about this. All the mechanical parts rotating and clicking, views of Paris in winter and the marvelous clocks are spectacular. So is the train-station. However, you can enjoy this beauty for the first 20 minutes and then it gets repetitive, whereas the plot falls apart and never gets back together. So you can turn it off after the 15-20 minutes and you won't miss anything. The trailer for Hugo has to be the most misleading trailer ever made. All the action scenes are in it, all the dull and bizarre rigmarole (which takes the other 140 minutes) is left out. The automaton which you can see in the trailer and expect to be crucial in the plot actually plays only a minor role in the whole thing. If you think that the movie is about finding Hugo's father or his secrets, you're also wrong. That would have been exciting. Scorcese's solution is anything but. Oh, and the trailer had fantastic 30 Seconds to Mars music, why was it not in the movie? On second thoughts, it's fine. 30 Seconds to Mars do not need to play their songs for such humdrum 'masterpieces'. If you haven't seen it, don't bother.