Movie Review: Hugo

I'm a huge Martin Scorsese fan but for whatever reason, I was in no rush to see his latest film Hugo. A kids movie in 3D just didn't seem up my alley. My bad. I finally got around to seeing Hugo and cannot stop raving about this movie. It's amazing. Like, one of my favorite Scorsese films ever type amazing.

Hugo is a young orphan living in a Paris train station in the 1930's. When he isn't operating/maintaining the stations many clocks, he passes the time stealing food from shops, dodging the police and picking up spare parts to fix an old automaton that he and his father dreamed of fixing together before his death. One day he crosses paths with the stations elderly toy shop owner and after becoming friends with his young goddaughter, embarks on an heart warming adventure that somehow ties together themes like longing, death, redemption, family and the power & history of early cinema...and robots, into a nice little tear inducing package. I'm not kidding, this old grinch came close to crying several times during this film.

So first thing's first. I HATE 3D. I think it's lame and a sad desperate attempt for Hollywood to make an extra buck and herd the masses back into theaters to watch their (mostly) sub par piles of dog crap they play in multiplexes these days. Now that we've got that out of the way, Hugo is easily the best looking 3D film I've ever seen. Don't mention that Avatar crap in the same sentence as this. Even James Cameron is all wet over Hugo's 3D presentation. Next, I'd like to say how awesome the film's cast is. Asa Butterfield, the little dude who plays Hugo, gives an amazing performance as this downtrodden yet optimistic orphan. His eyes and facial expressions are priceless not to mention he looks like a clone of Elijah Wood from the early 90's...but even sappier! Chloe Moretz is the next Natalie Portman, I'm calling it now. Ben Kingsley, he's already regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time so I should have known he would knock this role out of the park, but I honestly didn't expect him to be this good in a "kids film" you know? I even liked Sacha Baron Cohen as the bumbling police inspector and I usually hate that guy.

Lebowski achievers

The most powerful thing about Hugo is Scorsese's genuinely earnest love of film and all the many aspects of the art form. The audience follows Hugo through a crash course in cinematic history and although the plot of Hugo focuses on a different director in the early 20th century...it's basically Scorsese's love letter to his craft. From the costumes, camera work, editing, art direction, acting, to the sound of film stock running through a projector and the overwhelming experience of sitting in a dark theater, Hugo is basically Martin Scorsese shouting I LOVE MY JOB from the mountaintops. In 3D.

So now it's Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas...Hugo. It's that good folks.