First, I’d like to say I’m sorry for being gone forever, but hopefully (keep your fingers crossed) I’ll be back with more than just this review, and there will be more to come. We’ll see though!
Anywho, Hugo is a movie that could get a lot of different reactions from people. For instance, Dad really enjoyed it a lot. He enjoyed the story and the way it progressed was pretty nice. I, on the other hand, thought it was just ok. Not to say it was bad by any stretch, it just wasn’t great in my mind. The story was about a child, who was orphaned by his parents’ deaths, and then later by his uncle. He stays in the train station walls and cranks all the clocks (remember, this is 1930s we’re talking about here). His main goal through the majority of the film is fixing a machine that he and his father had worked on while he was alive. The rest of the movie, the more enjoyable part I believe, is spent trying to build up the confidence of a man who feels betrayed by the boy. Adventures unfold, and they discover things about the man that puts him in a new light, and it ends happily ever after or whatever.
Now, the scenery was really neat. You could tell some of it wasn’t real, but that’s always going to happen. However, the gear animations and clock scenes were all stunning. I guess since those scenes were the primary focus of the film that’s a good thing, but still, the visuals of those are simply amazing.
The acting was pretty great with exception to one, and coincidentally the most important, character. Asa Butterfield, who played Hugo, the main character, while being able to play the orphan well enough, really just didn’t connect with me in anyway to keep me really enthralled with it. Ben Kingsley, on the other hand, I felt did splendidly as the shop owner with a past he’d like to forget, and my favorite part of the entire movie is actually the part where he takes over and talks about his past. That was the one part of the movie that I was completely involved with. Sacha Baron Cohen played the station inspector, and he did well with the role. He managed to squeeze in enough awkwardness in the part to act as the comic relief. Chloe Grace Moretz did a great job as Isabelle, who is the one who motivates Hugo to actually take some adventures out of the station. So, as I said, there was only one performance which I thought was lack-luster, and unfortunately it was the one that mattered most.
In the end, I would still recommend this movie. The more I think of it the more I realize that I actually did enjoy it more than I thought I had. However, the acting of the main character still keeps it from being anything more than alright in my opinion. Unfortunate really, because this movie had all the elements of being really good. By all means see it; the story and visuals alone are by far worth it, but if you come out of the theater and feel as if something wasn’t up to expectations or you feel like it was missing a little something, in my opinion, it was the lead.
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The Reel Reviewer 