'Hugo' A Review

'Hugo' is film about an orphan boy, Hugo, who lives in a train station. Past that it's unclear what the movie is trying to be about. Is it about being alone, is it about toys/clock work, is it about growing up, is it about dreams, is it about movies? The movie is incredibly vague and meandering with respect to it's subject matter. Reviewers have said it's Scorsese's homage to silent films, it's unfortunate silent films aren't actually mentioned or referred to until 100 minutes in. And the silent movie content was unrolled in a 15 minute montage.

The acting is wooden, especially Ben Kingsly's as 'surly' shop owner. All the characters go through no change, no emotional arc, and it's not apparent that they are even real people. Certainly there are plot devises that 'change' the characters, but by the acting you would be unable to tell.

The film is frustratingly long and gives little to no context who the main character is or what his motivations are. We see, in a flashback, Jude Law as Hugo's dad for maybe two minutes. In this flashback Hugo and his dad are repairing a mechanical toy man who writes. The first part of the movie is all about repairing this toy man because Hugo believes whatever it writes will be some kind of message or closure from his father. Once repaired the story abandons Hugo and his dad and shifts to Ben Kingsly's character. It's nonsensical poor-storytelling.

There is also some terrible comedic relief by Sacha Baron Cohen as the station security that seems as if it's in the wrong movie.

The film is unclear, unstructured, and unsatisfying.

Don't See It.