Hugo: Like A Tin Man In Search of a Heart

Rating: 7/10 (29 December 2011)

This film is recommended.
Time is of the essence and creativity is at the heart of Hugo, Martin Scorsese's so-called children's film about a boy and his robot. It's 1930 and Hugo Cabret ( Asa Butterfield ) is an orphan who secretly lives behind the clockwork of a Paris train station and dreams of a better life. Left alone by his inventor father, played by Jude Law, Hugo survives from day to day at the Gare Montparnasse. His father's lasting legacy to him is a robot in need of repair which Hugo diligently works on using stolen gears from a toy store at the station. One of the missing components is an elusive key to put all the gears into motion. Achieving that goal will take him on a journey unlike any before.
It is at the train depot that he soon befriends a shop owner ( Ben Kingsley, giving a superb performance ) and his daughter, Isabelle ( Chloe Grace Moretz ). However, not everyone finds Hugo endearing, especially the station inspector who is always on the hunt for him. Sasha Baron Cohen plays the villain of the piece and provides the broad comedy and slapstick to entertain the younger members of the movie audience while the older moviegoers can be transported along with them to an imaginative world of adventure.
Based on Brian Selznick best-selling book, The Inventions of Hugo Cabret, and adapted by John Logan, the film is breathtaking in its visual splendor, but rather mechanical and leaden in its story. The characters and sets seem to be inspired and resemble the detailed illustrations of another children's author, Chris VanAllberg. With the state-of-the-art technology on this big screen adaptation, the camera artfully glides and soars, showcases the 3-D experience to its maximum effect and in the hands of a master like Scorsese. All moviegoers will be totally enthralled by the CGI, even when the story begins to lose some momentum in its narrative focus. The tracking shots, especially the opening sequence, and the fluid camera movements are astonishing and literally carry the viewer into a journey to another dimension. Scorsese's impressive use of swinging pendulums, metal staircases and moving gears, his use of smoke and dust particles floating in the air, his aerial perspectives within the train station, all add to the film's sense of awe. ( By the way, Hugo's surrealistic dream sequence is pure artistry. ) This film's technical craftsmanship is the best use of 3-D since Avatar.
Yet, my movie-going experience felt a bit incomplete due to the narrative structure of the film. At times, Hugo strays from the central plot and begins to meander. The children's adventure is at odds with its overt history lesson of early filmmaking. The two story lines never connect. The first half of the film is too leisurely paced and the minor characters remain only one- dimensional, continually upstaged by the lavish three-dimensional trappings. Children should be children, and children's films should be children's films, keeping their lighthearted nature with less pontificating. When Hugo takes itself too seriously, which is most of the time, it becomes somewhat inert.
The film wants to work on another more sophisticated level with its love of film imagery and its heartfelt nostalgic view of the early days of filmmaking. While the film has moments that enchants as a children's fantasy should, to this adult in the audience, it became slightly desperate in its attempt to become more serious straining its credibility whenever it served as an homage to talents of Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and specifically to Georges Méliès, a pioneer of early cinema. ( In fact, the shopkeeper is one and the same man and that plot device bears some truth. )
Scorsese has assembled a first-class team to handle the production values: music score by Howard Shore, absolutely terrific cinematography by Robert Richardson, editing by Thelma Schoonmaker, costumes by Sandy Powell, and an overall production design by Dante Ferretti, whose period sets are reminiscent of the old sepia stereoscopic images of time past. These are all gifted and accomplished artisans in their respective fields, and this film contains some of their finest work to date.
Like its automaton, Hugo is a technically brilliant creation lacking in genuine emotion. Still, the film is quite captivating and an impressive achievement in modern day filmmaking. ( Make sure you take the time to see this film experience in its 3-D format and on the large screen for optimal effect. ) Hugo is a thrilling joyous ride into the world of 3-D and the vivid imagination of one of our foremost directors. GRADE: B
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