No one liked it in our group

Rating: 1/10 (5 January 2012)

Hugo was the dullest film I saw last year. We had a group of five, all ardent filmgoers, ages 12 to 80, and it was an unanimous verdict - sort of interesting in the 3D presentation, but a terrible story. Scorcese basically lectures the audience on the value of film preservation. If that's not a yawner from the get-go, I don't know what is. He includes scenes from historically-important films, either replicating them directly, or paying homage to them. When he tried the Harrold Lloyd clock scene, I could only think of how inferior it was to the original; no suspense, no humor, just waiting for the scene to end. Then he must have done that train coming into the station four or five times. Okay, you don't need to sledgehammer everyone. And why did everyone in Paris have an English accent? Quite strange. There was nothing subtle, nothing surprising, nothing beyond cliché in the story. To top it off, we had to pay extra for the 3D. I would have liked the money back on this one.