Amiable mystery. 75%

Rating: 7/10 (30 January 2012)

Can't say that I was keen to watch this movie. Reviews gave me the impression that it was aimed at people who had an encylopaedic knowledge of early cinema. Did read an interview in my local tabloid with Chloë Grace Moretz where she mentions fooling the director Martin Scorcese with her English accent when auditioning for her role in the movie. That was a sort of a hook into this film for me (I have seen Chloë in a couple of other movies where some random factoid also provided a 'hook' to see the movie). In any case, Chloë's accent is probably the least interesting aspect of this movie. If you like slow burning mysteries, there's a lot to like here for you.
It's the story of the titular boy (played by Asa Butterfield) who is an orphan and lives in a clock tower in Paris. He has certain items which belonged to his father. Part of the mystery is how Hugo got to be an orphan. The other part of the mystery is the relationship between Hugo's father and Georges (played by Ben Kingsley)...they seem to have some connection as evidenced by Hugo's possessions.
Georges' story becomes a reverential homage to the history of cinema in the hands of Scorcese (the character of Georges was unknown to me by name alone...so perhaps cinema afficionados would appreciate this movie on 'another level' if the name rings a bell for them). There does seem to be some factual basis to the story so my curiosity is piqued as to how much truth there is to Georges' biography in this movie (concerning what happened to him after World War I)...is there a lot of fact or a lot of wish fulfilment on Scorcese's part?
Performances are uniformly strong. Chloë (as Isabelle) has an element of "jolly hockey sticks" to her performance at times, which seems to be from another movie...if this movie has source material, perhaps this element was diluted in the movie? Wasn't so much of a fan of this aspect to her character. Asa has a very fine moment near the end of the movie where he emotes movingly (to the following person...). Sacha Baron Cohen has a major role as the station inspector where Hugo lives...often coming across as a hybrid between Inspector Clouseau and an Innitman. Some of his physical comedy is good in this movie and I guess that he may have improvised some of his lines...it seems at times that the people he is playing against are genuinely surprised and amused by his utterances. Ben Kingsley also shows many sides to his character and getting a take on his character early on his hard.
A weird observation to make, but...looking at Chloë sometimes, she seemed a bit androgynous looking to me (had a touch of the Macauley Culkins to me, it seemed. Maybe she could have been framed better at times...although there is some effective 3D imagery where certain characters are grotesquely framed)...maybe she could play a boy in another movie and win an Oscar? That would certainly be a 'hook'! Isabelle certainly does have an interesting vocabulary...I had to paint the picture myself of how I imagined Hugo would process her utterances...but, again, this element of Isabelle's character is not overplayed, fortunately. Maybe Chloë was miscast, in the following sense...she is a big girl now and towers over Asa...so, unless Asa prefers more mature women...(hmm...tongue in cheek, Isabelle's interest in Hugo does come across as a little bit creepy with that height differential...not sure if any source material has an (probable) age difference like this).
One pleasant surprise to me...have read in the past about the very first reactions to cinema, when it was invented...it was nice to be reminded of this in this movie...e.g. the black and white footage of a train pulling into a station.
This isn't an action packed movie or a laugh a minute, but it does have an engaging story and people may get a kick out of the footage from the early days of cinema. Maybe I've got a melancholy disposition, but I could have imagined giving this movie a higher score if things took a dark turn towards the end...when Hugo is keen to show Georges something as a surprise.
I saw this movie in 3D. Many times the effect is impressively realised through camera movement or framing.