Hugo (2011) review

(8/10)

It's good seeing something new from Scorsese, especially this quirky, inspiring fairy tale on cinema, but it isn't the best he's ever done.

PLOT:Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) is a young orphan who lives in a Parisan train station's clock tower because his father died in a fire. The only thing his father left him was an old automaton which needed fixing. Hugo has been stealing parts from a toy merchant to use, but this time the merchant (Ben Kingsley) finally catches him and steals his book of automaton design. Hugo follows him home, begging the merchant not to burn it, and meets his "granddaugher", Isabelle (Chloe Moretz), who teams up with him to save his book and fix the automaton. What they don't know, however, is that they're about to get into a mysterious adventure. It's a great plot executed wonderfully.



ACTING:The acting in this was pretty good overall. Asa Butterfield played a suprisingly good part as the lead child, Hugo. Chloe Moretz also played off of him rather well as Isabelle. The best role was probably Ben Kingsley as Georges, the merchant. The other shiners were Sacha Baron Cohen as the Station Inspector, Jude Law as Hugo's father, and Christopher Lee as Monsieur Labisse.

SCORE:The score was very intense and inspiring by Howard Shore. It really went with the film.

EFFECTS:The effects in here for the most part weren't the best to me. The CG effects looked rather cheap and too fake to me. The effects used for the clock and the old films showed in this were pretty great though.



OTHER CONTENT:This film was a pretty fantastic addition to Scorsese's resume, but it did have some problems. Aside from the British accents in the Parisan town, this film didn't have a real solid plotline and didn't show as much honor to the director as his other works. The plotline can't settle on exactly what it's trying to convey, but its execution more than somewhat makes up for that. However, it still remains a tad to quirky. Also, Martin Scorsese is a brilliant director, but this film just doesn't seem to match up to what he's done in the past. Aside from these minor flaws, this film was very fun, interesting, and a great honor to the magic of film in its pure form.

OVERALL,a great film with a wonderful plot, pretty good acting, inspiring score, cheap CG effects but good other effects, and a great honor to pure film, but the plotline seems a bit messy and it doesn't seem to add up to what Scorsese can do.