Hugo

A beautiful film with a heart warming story of a child seeking his purpose in the world after the heavy loss of his father, this film is one of the best, if not the best of the year, thoroughly a moving masterpiece which harks back to the classics. Filled with vivid scenes, all the gears and steam-works that would make a steampunk’s wet dream, and the innocence of a child and his imagination, Martin Scorsese has created a masterpiece and quite possibly an Oscar winner. The film has a lot of contrast depending on the location of the scene, owing much to the story taking place in 1930s Paris which is a digital marvel of a creation for this movie; we experience that landscape of the outside world, whereas the train station is vibrant and full of color and life, and then we have the dark underbelly of the station with its gritty noir and at times scary appeal.

There are several themes and plots in the movie giving it a complexity which makes the main character Hugo, for which the movie is named, played by Asa Butterfield show many different sides to his unique character as well as making him grow on us throughout the story.  Ben Kingsley is always a pleasure to see act, and he lends a lot of depth to his film, although quite the opposite with Jude Law‘s brief appearance which was quite forgettable unfortunately. Chloë Grace Moretz is barely recognizable in this film, aka Hit-Girl from Kick-Ass, but she plays the friendly love interest/adventure buddy to Hugo which actually felt perfectly innocent in the way it was portrayed, not two horny youngens, but more like two kindred spirits each searching for “home”. The side plot develops fairly well as does the mystery behind the automaton, which actually involves all the central characters and takes a very unique turn which makes homage to the birth of film making.

 Sacha Baron Cohen is supposedly the antagonist of the story but he lends delightful humor and his character is quite enjoyable making it hard to dislike him, especially as we learn more about this Inspector. Oddly I like Sacha when he does these type of roles instead of the buffoonery of his other films. This movie has a really well crafted cast each with uniquely crafted characters, and although I haven’t read the book the movie is based off, it really wants me to pick it up. Someone mentioned after the movie ended, that it was too long, and I greatly disagree as the movie didn’t feel as long to me, even though it did run just over 2 hours, but then again I really got pulled into it. I highly recommend watching it, although I know its not the adventure of a movie like the commercials make it out to seem, it really is a wonderful story filled with imagination and wonder which reminded me of MirrorMask which doesn’t click with everyone.