Many are tipping Hugo to be the movie of the year, including James Cameron who stated that it was ‘a masterpiece’ and told Scorsese personally that it was the best use of 3D technology he’d ever seen (this included his own films). I agree with him, sort of. Yes the 3D technology was used well and I am not one for dismissing the whole idea of 3D movies, I think they can work very well, what I don’t want is for the industry to overuse it and make It a gimmick when it should be a cinematic technique used to enhance the effectiveness of a film. However I don’t agree with Cameron that it was the best movie of the year, yes it looks beautiful and has a wonderful old fashioned feel to it but it struggles to find a purpose and feels very messy at times.
Okay so we begin with this beautiful tracking shot through clockwork and then the Parisian train station, a good start, but slowly but surely I begin to lose heart. There is this very odd sequence in the beginning where Hugo (Aza Butterfield) repeatedly asks for his notebook back which is very dreary and went on for much too long. But that’s not my real problem with it; I feel that it tried to be too much. It starts off as the social journey of Hugo which involves fixing people shown through his obsession with fixing things, fair enough. Then it turns into a movie about magic and then becomes this homage to early French cinema, and it really frustrated me. It had so much potential to be a very sound family film but the sudden topic shifts distorts its purpose and then it just falls apart.
Despite the confusion I did enjoy the reference to early cinema which is clearly Scorsese having fun with the movie as a film historian. I also liked the fact that it related to a real story and that of one extraordinary filmmaker, George Méliès. Which was fascinating and I recommend reading up about him because he is a quite extraordinary man, so passionate about movies which is what the film portrayed very well. I also liked the sub-stories that were done very well, like the library scenes with Christopher Lee. They felt a bit irrelevant but again in the spirit of a family film I accepted them and enjoyed them very much.
I thought the acting was very dodgy in some places, Aza Butterfield, who, after reviewing his filmography on IMDb, has a quite impressive backlog. I thought he was disappointing and there were moments where he showed potential but I found him quite monotonous and unnatural along with Chloe Moretz who was poor compared to her work in Kick-Ass (2010) which is quite brilliant. Ben Kingsley was very good and so was Christopher Lee, but Sacha Baron Cohen was really odd. I couldn’t understand his accent and it was unnecessary, other than his poor vocalisation he was good enough. But from a cast like that I expect a very good showcase of acting and instead I got a bit of a mixed bag.
I know I’m being harsh but that’s because I expected so much more from it, after hearing such amazing reviews from people I respect like Mark Kermode, who I admire a great deal. I wanted more from it and instead I got a quite adequate family flick which is what it sets out to be. I mean it’s not ambitious as a movie; it isn’t riddled with these political undertones or anything like that. It really is a movie about a kid living in a train station, which is fine. I am a bit disappointed that Scorsese didn’t deliver on this occasion because I rate him very highly as a filmmaker, I definitely like this idea of established serious directors going for family projects, because I don’t think many ‘kids’ movies get this sort of attention and everyone deserves to observe the work of such geniuses.
I don’t think it will trouble at the Oscars for any of the major awards but has a shout for the cinematography because it does look very good. For me the film of the year is very much undecided but The Artist looks promising, which comes out in January, so whether that counts is up for dispute but it will be very interesting to watch the two films together as they both run across the same theme of the exploration of the history of cinema, which is a subject I have a great deal of interest in. For me though Hugo 3D is very much like a box of really delicate milk chocolates, very sweet and quite tasty but one does prefer a richer more substantial box of delights.
Okay so we begin with this beautiful tracking shot through clockwork and then the Parisian train station, a good start, but slowly but surely I begin to lose heart. There is this very odd sequence in the beginning where Hugo (Aza Butterfield) repeatedly asks for his notebook back which is very dreary and went on for much too long. But that’s not my real problem with it; I feel that it tried to be too much. It starts off as the social journey of Hugo which involves fixing people shown through his obsession with fixing things, fair enough. Then it turns into a movie about magic and then becomes this homage to early French cinema, and it really frustrated me. It had so much potential to be a very sound family film but the sudden topic shifts distorts its purpose and then it just falls apart.
Despite the confusion I did enjoy the reference to early cinema which is clearly Scorsese having fun with the movie as a film historian. I also liked the fact that it related to a real story and that of one extraordinary filmmaker, George Méliès. Which was fascinating and I recommend reading up about him because he is a quite extraordinary man, so passionate about movies which is what the film portrayed very well. I also liked the sub-stories that were done very well, like the library scenes with Christopher Lee. They felt a bit irrelevant but again in the spirit of a family film I accepted them and enjoyed them very much.
I thought the acting was very dodgy in some places, Aza Butterfield, who, after reviewing his filmography on IMDb, has a quite impressive backlog. I thought he was disappointing and there were moments where he showed potential but I found him quite monotonous and unnatural along with Chloe Moretz who was poor compared to her work in Kick-Ass (2010) which is quite brilliant. Ben Kingsley was very good and so was Christopher Lee, but Sacha Baron Cohen was really odd. I couldn’t understand his accent and it was unnecessary, other than his poor vocalisation he was good enough. But from a cast like that I expect a very good showcase of acting and instead I got a bit of a mixed bag.
I know I’m being harsh but that’s because I expected so much more from it, after hearing such amazing reviews from people I respect like Mark Kermode, who I admire a great deal. I wanted more from it and instead I got a quite adequate family flick which is what it sets out to be. I mean it’s not ambitious as a movie; it isn’t riddled with these political undertones or anything like that. It really is a movie about a kid living in a train station, which is fine. I am a bit disappointed that Scorsese didn’t deliver on this occasion because I rate him very highly as a filmmaker, I definitely like this idea of established serious directors going for family projects, because I don’t think many ‘kids’ movies get this sort of attention and everyone deserves to observe the work of such geniuses.
I don’t think it will trouble at the Oscars for any of the major awards but has a shout for the cinematography because it does look very good. For me the film of the year is very much undecided but The Artist looks promising, which comes out in January, so whether that counts is up for dispute but it will be very interesting to watch the two films together as they both run across the same theme of the exploration of the history of cinema, which is a subject I have a great deal of interest in. For me though Hugo 3D is very much like a box of really delicate milk chocolates, very sweet and quite tasty but one does prefer a richer more substantial box of delights.
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