94% Hugo

"My friends, I address you all tonight as you truly are; wizards, mermaids, travelers, adventurers, magicians... Come and dream with me." These are the words of magician/director George Melies (Ben Kingsley) and also the very words of director Martin Scorsese in his love letter to all things cinema. Paris, 1931. Young Hugo (Asa Butterfield) maintains the clocks of a great railway station while avoiding a guard (Sacha Baron Cohen) intent on sending him to an orphanage. Aided by Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz), Hugo gets an automaton left by his late father (Jude Law) working. It draws a picture, which prompts the children to delve into the mystery of an unhappy shopkeeper (Kingsley), at this very station, and his intriguing history. Cinema is to be enjoyed and is the biggest, modern medium for means of escape. Granted, Scorsese allows us to escape here but doesn't really escape to anywhere noteworthy. The whole film looks absolutely magnificent and Scorsese's use of 3D is the best I have seen yet. He doesn't rely on action set-pieces to get it across but concentrates more on the basics; snow falling, steam drifting and passers-by in order to fully amerce us in the grand scheme of things. It works a treat and looks wonderful but ultimately remains just a visual spectacle, instead of the adventure in which it proclaims to be. In fact, the biggest moment of entertainment comes from his use of archival footage of the great Harold Lloyd and his classic clock tower stunt from "Safety Last!" in 1923. There's no doubt that Scorsese is a film buff and feels the need to remind us of the craftwork and illusionary beauty of some forgotten pioneers of cinema but he doesn't quite achieve anything worth noting in telling his own tale. The use of 3D is magnificent (and sometimes distorting) but even that will eventually be bettered in time. Fine performances are included, young Asa Butterfield is commanding throughout but some, like Emily Mortimer, are wasted in thankless roles. In fact, the film has everything going for it but somehow, strangely, seems uneventful. As a visual spectacle it's outstanding but also somehow laboured and tedious. Maybe my expectations were too high going into this. Scorsese's Oscar nomination for best director is well deserved but I found myself waiting for something to happen and... it never did. What it does do, is allow you to appreciate the craftsmanship and wonderment of cinema, and being Scorsese's obvious intention, it at least achieves that.

February 5, 2012

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hugo/

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