NOT a fantastical imaginative adventure film

Rating: 4/10 (1 June 2015)

The trailers and the wonderful cartoon-like shots of the city of Paris may have misled you into thinking this film would be a children's magical adventure-type film. The film is not that at all. This film should be called "Why is everybody so cruel to Hugo?" This poor orphaned boy who's drunk uncle forces him to abandon school and work the clocks of a train station in Paris is all alone in the world except for a mysterious automaton that he and his father were rebuilding until his father's untimely death in a freak fire at the museum where he moonlighted. He and his father were clockmakers, so presumably they could fix the abandoned automaton, a machine of such complexity that it could write. However there were several missing parts and also a heart-shaped hole where obviously a key fits nicely into. Of course the drunk uncle also abandons Hugo, so this 9-ish year old kid lives by himself in the clock towers, running the clocks, stealing food, and stealing little parts from the old man who runs the toy shop (Ben Kingsley). He gets caught trying to steal a wind-up mouse when Papa Georges (BK) catches him and basically manhandles him until Hugo gives up his life's possessions kept in his coat pockets- some tiny clock parts and a notebook of the automaton drawn by Hugo's dad. Papa Georges gets all weird about the notebook and keeps it, even though it's one of Hugo's prized possessions from his late father. The kid is obviously distressed, and you figure there is a reason for Papa Georges' overreaction to a drawing, but the actual reason is NOT REASON ENOUGH. So then the kid meets Chloe Grace Moretz, the godchild of Papa George and the two embark on an 'adventure' to find the meaning behind the automaton. They must recover the notebook in order the fix the automaton which will reveal the hidden message left by Hugo's late father. However they don't recover the notebook and Hugo fixes it anyway, and CGM's character happens to have the heart-shaped key which fits perfectly into the heart-shaped hole which gets the automaton moving and it draws a picture of a scene from a film. The "secret" message is that the film was the first film Hugo's dad ever saw, and they used to go watch movies together. Not the most heart-warming message from beyond... this was obviously not a secret message from the father. It turns out that Papa Georges was that filmmaker and he was so upset with Hugo from stirring up failed memories of his film career. Also Papa Georges was a magician. Also Papa Georges built the automaton, so he's also a master robot builder. But he was really upset that his film studio crashed, so even though Hugo had no idea wth was going on, Papa Georges yells at him "this is how you repay me?" Look, old man- there are a lot of emotions stirred up, the kid is curious, digs up some old pictures, he has no idea wtf is going on, and you cruelly kick him out with basically no information even though he thinks you hold the key to some small bit of information about his dead father? Anyway it all turns out okay because some crazy movie buff who is a huge fan of George Melies (aka Papa Georges) happens to have the only one of hundreds of films that Papa Georges had made back in the day before he had sold or destroyed the rest of his movie things. They set up a surprise screening at Papa George's house, where the wife at first is also really mean because she wants to spare Papa Georges' hurt feelings, but then allows them to show the film and gets super happy and into it because she used to be the star actress and it's bringing back nice memories. Anyway Papa Georges wakes up and sees the end of his movie and all of a sudden is talked into forgiving Hugo for drudging up bad memories of his failed movie career and acknowledges his failure and starts talking about the automaton. Hugo, being the super kind kid that he is, immediately runs back to his "house" to retrieve the automaton but is caught by the crippled Station Inspector (Sacha Baren Cohen) who really really hates orphans for some reason and they run around and Hugo hangs off the minute hand of a clock (!) and also jumps into the train tracks to save the automaton. The Station Inspector saves him from an oncoming train and says almost kindly "what were you thinking?" Well obviously he's trying to get away from you, you giant man who's been chasing this kid all over the train station with your snarling Doberman. Anyway, Papa Georges comes just in time to "claim" Hugo, which means adopt in 1900 Paris. Then there is a big revival of George Melies films where the crazy film buff somehow procures several films thought to be lost or destroyed. Papa Georges is so happy and credits Hugo for fixing the automaton and getting the ball rolling. Everyone is happy. Except for me. So where is the magic? What is the message from the dead father? Don't say that it's "Hugo finds a family!" because that's crazy. Those people were mean and awful to that poor orphan and all of a sudden they adopt him? I think I'm mostly disappointed that this film didn't live up to the magical adventure hype the trailers seemed to promise. I finished the movie thinking "that poor kid," all the way to the end. Also, how does he shower and brush his teeth? The cinematography is amazing, and the film wins Oscars for cinematography and visual effects, and the actors are pretty great, just the story falls short for me.