A game of two halves

Rating: 7/10 (4 December 2011)

Let me divide my comments into two sections - Content and Execution - and start with the latter.
This is one of the most superbly executed films I have ever seen. Production design is amazing - it evokes its own self-contained universe of time and space unlike any other film I have seen. Scorsese's Gangs Of New York did a similar thing, but Hugo has an air of otherworldliness all of its own. Scorsese's use of the camera is stunning, and his use of 3D is even better - here is the only director other than Cameron (so far) who understands that 3D can be both a tool for storytelling and also an artistic addition to the director's toolbox. The 3D work here truly adds a dimension to what is on screen. It goes without saying that performances are excellent, but the two youngsters who carry the film are top notch. Scorsese's mastery over what appears on screen is total.
Now we come to content, and here is where the film falters. The story of an orphaned boy, surviving in a Paris railway station post WWI by keeping the clocks running (in the face of a hostile security Inspector and also a toy shop proprietor from whom he thieves mechanical parts) so that he can mend an automaton which he hopes will give him a clue about his father, is a promising one. It has the virtue of not heading in any of the anticipated directions. Unfortunately, the direction it does head in - a love letter to the birth of the cinema - doesn't easily sit with the story up to that point. And, while it looks good, it doesn't engage the viewer in the same way - I never really felt there was anything very much at stake.
So Hugo is definitely worth seeing - and I recommend seeing it in 3D - but it falls some way short of being the totally satisfying experience it starts out as.