Expected more, despite the magic

Rating: 7/10 (2 March 2012)

After reading reviews who praised Hugo to the skies, my expectation grew equally. I though I was going to see a spectacular adventure in 1930's french, told to perfection. Hugo is not that.
Hugo is magical and has a fantastic tone and somewhat nice pacing. A lot of the pictures displayed are amazing and astonishing, yet not over doing it. In that perspective the movie is fantastic. You can't really create better movie magic.
Anyhow, this is not the whole truth. Even though the cinematic, all the camera angles, the music, the pacing, everything is perfectly executed the movie sometime lacks in several other dimensions.
For example, the actors are sometimes a little bit tense and the dialogue feels thick and unrealistic. Especially the dialogue between the children. Sometimes the story feels disjointed and a little bit rushed. Also the editing sometimes seemed a little bit accelerated. Also, the story lacks surprises and are mostly very predictive which is boring for movie regulars.
They should have "fin-tuned" some pieces in this movie if they wanted to create a "masterpiece". The story is also not what I expected even though I liked the movie-history lesson, but I wanted something bigger and more exciting.
Anyhow I think Scorsese and the movie team are proud over the film. It is one of the best child-movies made in recent years and also very educating. But it does not meet the potential it could have reached and is not something "out of the ordinary". But if you're looking for a chance to dream away into another time and experience a storytale with great warmth, magical tone and some laughs it may be just what you're looking for.
7.5 / 10