An OK film that could have been so much better !

Rating: 5/10 (14 April 2012)

I waited a while before i watched Hugo and I must say overall I was disappointed. I had seen all the written plaudits beforehand, the Oscar and BAFTA nominations etc and the premise seemed to be a good one. However, when it came to the film itself, I had to wonder at times if I was watching the same film as everybody else. Throwing together a great director, some good special effects and a good story, does not a great movie make ! OK so the story was OK, the effects were pretty good, but thats where the plus points really have to end. Some incredibly poor 'stage school' children 'acting' and an incredibly annoying, hammy and over the top 'performance' from Sasha Baron Cohen left me feeling that the chance to make a really great film here had been wasted.
Brilliant acting talent like Richard Griffiths, Ray Winstone and Frances De La Tour seem to have been given nondescript parts simply to try and make the film play more credible to the British movie going public. The one acting highlight being Ben Kingsley, as always and in a way the better subject and focus for the movie. What a pity his character wasn't the focal point, with a few tweaks of the story the children could easily have been dispensed with.
Having said all of that, there were some nice moments, some clever little touches and some nice inter meshing of truth and fairy tale. And with that all important 'feel good' factor at the end, I can sort of see why some people thought this was a 10 out of 10 film. Sadly however, not me.