Time Out For Amelie

Rating: 6/10 (3 December 2011)

I'm about as far away from a Scorcese fan as you can get. In my book he targets the lowest common denominator via a combination of foul language and violence. True, there have been exceptions. I went to see New York, New York, despite antipathy to the two leads, because it was about Jazz in the immediate post-war years; verdict: ho-hum. A little later he made Age Of Innocence and I went because I was almost certain that he would be unable to insert his winning parlay (scatological violence) without radically altering Edith Wharton's stylistic novel. Verdic: slightly less ho-hum. I was sold on Hugo because I read that 1) it was set in Paris which meant it would have to be seriously bad to counteract the City of Light and 2) considerable footage was devoted to Cinema itself. Scorcese is well-documented as both loving and being an expert on movies so it is almost certain that he is familiar with Amelie and it is equally certain that he has, to some extent, remade it with a male protagonist. Amelie, if you recall, was a catalyst surrounded by sad people who needed 1) a nudge to bring them together or 2) some form of healing. Hugo is also a catalyst surrounded by people who need help getting together - Sacha Baron Cohen/Emily Mortimer, Richard Griffiths/Frances de la Tour - and healing - Ben Kingsley. Viewed in these terms it can be said that both catalysts succeed admirably but, it has to be said, when is a rip-off not a rip-off? possibly when it's a sacred cow doing the ripping-off. The 3D is used effectively and Christopher Lee supplies the best performance, counteracting the film's worst performance by Ben Kingsley. The protagonist, alas, Asa Butterfield, is as mechanical as the clock he tends so devotedly and by far the best thing on view is the actual vintage footage.