enjoyable but rather preachy film

Rating: Null/10 (25 March 2012)

*Spoiler/plot- 2011, A young orphan boy has tragic beginnings with his watchmaker father's accidental death and his uncle's alcoholism at the train station. The boy ends up living & working winding up the Paris train station clocks for his drunken uncle. The boy is a genius in fixing most clockwork mechanisms. Hugo meets a bitter toyshop owner that takes an interest in him and his interests. Later the boy finds a friend in the toy merchant's daughter who helps the boy to explore his memories of his troubled childhood and clockwork hobbies. We find out that the boy and the merchant are linked in a very interesting way through common interests in dream & story telling and vintage motion picture interests.
*Special Stars- Asa Butterfield, Ben Kingsley, Jude Law, Sacha Baron Cohen, Christopher Lee. DIR: Martin Scorsesse *Theme- Artists are seldom appreciated in their own times and origins.
*Trivia/location/goofs- An multi Oscar nominated and one award winning film. Scorsesse appears in this film in a cameo as the portrait photographer of George Milies & wife in front of their new motion picture glass walled studio. The Paris train station police inspector wounded WW1 veteran with a steel leg brace heavy Cockney English accent working selected by the actor Sacha "Borat" Cohen was a questionable choice and why not a French accent. The portable film screen used to show Mrs. Milies her husband's film remaining film by the museum professor was not available during the time period of this film, an anachronism.
*Emotion- An enjoyable but rather preachy film on the origins and scarcity of early 'Flickers" one reel films from the 1890's by George Milies encased in a family drama. While the narrative plot of this film is thin but charming, the rest of the film is a bio-pic of George Milies and tediously showcased his life and his works. The acting in this film was pedestrian but the biographic matter was of some note to hardcore film students and historians. Mainstream audience will find this film slow and boring with little human pathos. There were too many boring digital dolly tracking shots, disgusting digital 'dust in the air' shots and infinity digital sets shots that detracted greatly from the enjoyment of the dramatic scenes. The character development was lacking in many of the more colorful characters. I found myself wanting & watching them and not the lead actors. A pretentious film of a overbearing point of view which was not very entertaining.