Hugo

There are a couple of directors who I will go and see whatever they produce. Tim Burton is one, Steven Spielberg is another. Obviously Martin Scorsese belongs in this group. Although I have mixed views on his work, it's always worth watching.

I didn't know that much about the film, having missed the trailer. The first I really heard about Hugo was when Martin was interviewed by Mark Kermode. The film sounded really interesting and a world away from a typical Scorsese film.

The film centres around Hugo (Asa Butterfield) a young orphan, who after several family misfortunes, looks after the clocks in a Paris train station in the early 1930's.

Hugo spends his time avoiding the Station Inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen), stealing food and objects for his precious project: a broken automaton which was found by his father. His father noted all of the designs of the automaton in a book which Hugo uses to find the missing parts.

One of the shops that Hugo tries to steal parts from is a toy shop owned by Papa George (Ben Kingsley), who takes the book away from him as punishment for stealing from him.

Hugo then tries to enlist George's goddaughter Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz) to help him get his book back and complete the automaton. It transpires that she has the missing piece (a heart-shaped key).

When the automaton works again, it reveals that Isabelle's godfather was a well-respected film maker who left film-making after becoming disillusioned with the business. The film goes on to explain the start of cinema in the early 1900's.

First of all, this is a beautifully made film that has clearly had a lot of love and passion bestowed upon it. I saw it in 2-D, however I can see that it would have looked just as good in 3-D. 

I liked the basic message of the film which was essentially that everyone has their role to play in the world and that there's no such thing as a 'spare part' and there were some chuckles throughout the film, but the film felt like a very long two hours and seven minutes.

The problem with Hugo is that it is essentially two films mashed together. The first being about a boy who lives in the station, the second being about a film-maker being rediscovered after many years in the wilderness. The more interesting story is the second. The first is very much your early Spielberg type story and if truth be told, I found it a little dull.

Some of the characters were unnecessary, Baron Cohen's Inspector Gustav is a blatant copy of 'Allo Allo's Officer Crabtree to the point where I almost expected him to say 'Good Moaning'.  And as is to be expected, there were the 'shoe-horned' in romances. Again, completely pointless and added nothing to the story.

Verdict: A really beautiful looking film, but there isn't enough action to keep kids entertained, and it's not interesting enough for adults.