I had to see Hugo, simply because it's Martin Scorsese making a light-hearted family film, a man famous for directing The Departed, Goodfellas and Gangs of New York, and as it stands it is a pretty good movie!
Set in 1930s Paris, Hugo follows an orphan boy who lives within the walls of a train station, maintaining the clocks. After his father died he vowed to fix an intricate clockwork automaton they had once found, and to uncover the mystery as to where it came from and who created it.
I loved the premise of the movie, and discovered a heartfelt and human experience within that talks about past grief and helping each other recover from it. To "fix" someone, as the film suggests.
It has wonderful quirky characters, great attention to detail and humour throughout (Sasha Baron Cohen is surreal but wonderful as the station guard who hunts down Hugo relentlessly with his pet hound).
The last oddity is how Hugo acts as a love letter to movies in general. The plot begins to hinge on to classic (real) film history, and the very inventors and inspirations of all film makers and lovers. This was charming, but it changes the mood of the film completely, these moments sometimes feel over-long, distracting from the characters themselves (it is nice to be educated however!)
Enjoyable, if quite steady-paced and slow for younger children. But it gave what I hoped it would give, and boasts some of the best use of 3D I've seen in a while!
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