My impression of the movie (midnight screening)

Rating: 9/10 (23 November 2011)

This movie will definitely go down as a children's/family classic. I couldn't help but get the same vibe I used to get while watching family films from the 80s and 90s...something that has been missing in films IMO from 2000-2010 (as far as live action films go).
To be honest, this film felt like a very very good Spielberg film. I'm not a die hard fan who over analyzes Scorsese's work (meaning I don't know what his signature director "trademarks" art, or rather what filming techniques are unique to him), and if the film was credited to Spielberg I'd believe it. That's not to say Scorsese is a bad director. He's a living legend. This just happens to be virgin ground for him...directing and producing a children's/family movie. And the movie happens to be just as good/on par with, if not better than, a solid Spielberg film.
Best Picture winner? Maybe not, but will definitely be a nominee. There are a lot of independent films that have been released this year that will surely get recognized, and there still are a couple films yet to be released that will get recognized by the academy.
Best supporting actor nomination for Ben Kingsley? Definitely. Will he get his second Oscar? I hope so. He was fantastic in the movie and it's the only other role he's ever played other than Gandhi where he was totally dissolved into the character he was playing. In other films, perhaps it was bad writing or bad characters that didn't let him show his true potential as an actor. Or maybe I just haven't seen enough of his films. Regardless, this is the best I've seen him since Richard Attenborough's Gandhi.
Is the 3D worth it? Definitely, but only at decent modern theaters. I saw Tron Legacy at an older theater last year and the 3D there was just awful...images were blurry, dark, etc. I saw it first at an Imax Digital 3D theater and it was amazing (the 3D and the picture quality). At my local theater, which was renovated about 10+ years ago I believe, the image quality for Hugo in 3D was superb. Only the dark scenes were a bit off-putting, and only because for some reason my eyes were seeing both images separately instead of together as a stereoscopic image. Most of the movie is bright and colorful though which made the 3D very nice.
I don't suppose seeing this in 2D would hurt the overall experience though. But, the 3D in this film was very immersive. Similar to how Avatar was. Plus, it was filmed in 3D and is how the film was intended to be seen. Just to see the insides of a clock tower and train station in 3D is a real treat IMO.
Plot holes? Some early reviews I read suggested there was some, but I didn't catch any (or rather, I only noticed one and it was very very minor). The only thing that the film was lacking was a little more character development for the supporting and background actors, but they weren't major characters and weren't really that important to the story (since the story was focusing on Hugo and Ben Kingsley's characters almost entirely). There was one plot hole I suppose, but it doesn't really matter and isn't distracting. The plot hole involves Hugo's uncle, who appears in the first half of the film to be Hugo's guardian, the station's clock mechanic (who makes sure all the clocks are working properly and are on time), and an alcoholic. After he is introduced, he quickly vanishes from the film until the last half hour.
Is this film Scorsese's masterpiece? I don't know if I'd go that far, since it definitely isn't his best or most powerful film. But if you want to call it a "family-film masterpiece", and not Scorsese's best, then I'd agree with you.
Sacha Baron Cohen's character... Kind of weird seeing him in a family film considering his filmography, but he wasn't distracting and fit in well as comic-relief, sometimes villainous, and was believable as a quirky French train station officer.
I gave the film a solid 9/10. Not a perfect 10 because there were some flaws...but only in the character development (of supporting/minor characters).
ALSO! One thing I loved about the film was how there were a few short scenes and segments showing Hugo watching the people in the train station go about their daily routines. Many of these scenes almost looked as if they were re-enactments of old silent films...just as Sacha's character trying to sum up the courage to talk to a woman he likes, or an older man trying to woo a similarly aged woman but her dog doesn't like him and is hostile to him, the ridiculous chase sequence between Sacha and Hugo, etc. It's almost as if all the scenes in the film not directly related to the plot were montages (or homages) of silent film plots. And they were all pleasant and amusing to watch.
Anyway, go see this film. It's a very pleasant film. It also employs a lot of themes as well, probably the most prominent is the theme of honoring past filmmakers and preserving their work so they can survive the ages. The whole part about Ben Kingsley's character having made hundreds of films only to have burned all of his master copies to get extra cash, living his life believing that all of his life's work gone forever was just...well...sad and depressing. Even sadder is the fact that it's based on a true story.
All in all this is a very lovely film. Has a lot of charm to it. There is no doubt in my mind that it will go down as a classic.