I've always been a fan of Martin Scorsese the movie lecturer, the cinema teacher, and the film preservationist. As for being a director, it is sadly a giant bundle of mixed feelings for myself due to his odd, but nevertheless peculiar, outputs. For his his newest film HUGO, Scorsese got to highlight, underscore, and triumphantly show off all of his favorite hobbies in one big magnum opus for families. Though adapted from a children's book and written by John Logan, the film screams the real-life sensibilities and feelings of Scorsese; it is a heavily made fan fiction of the origins of cinema with plenty of PSA moments to fill in the rest of the gaps of its long-winded running time of a little over two hours.
It is hard to discuss this movie without giving out the major spoiler and central mystery, even though I have already alluded to it. The story sets itself up as something completely different: a story of a orphaned boy who lives and works at a Paris train station when he isn't stealing food or toy mechanisms, running from a constantly harassing train inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen), or suffering from his other Dickensian nightmares and perils. That's all fine and dandy but it really isn't the main interest, nor is it really all that interesting to watch.
That is where Ben Kingsley's character comes into the spotlight. The begrudging, self-loathing old man at the station's toy shop, who does have some tendencies to break his cold facade with magic tricks, becomes more important to Hugo's main plot of fixing up an old automaton found by his late father. Foreshadowed expertly by Scorsese, the man is revealed to be a certain long lost film director, a person who brought many innovations to the world of cinema but, more importantly, brought dreams to real life.
Everything involving Kingsley, who gives a great performance, and his torturous past are some of the absolute most striking moments to come out this year. Scorsese, along with Robert Richardson's excellent camerawork and his creative art and costume designers, make exquisite beauty within the film frames and truly hit my movie-loving heart. I can forgive the Scorsese surrogate and the deliberately hammered-in guided tours for general audiences, because this man got to recapture why film matters to the world and why it has such an impact on the human soul.
Unfortunately, this transcendental bliss I experienced is not expanded further or more in-depth as it should have been. This is because, to the detriment of the film, the focus is placed more squarely on Hugo and his plight. This is not at all Asa Butterfield's fault as the boy, since he is capable to pull great emotional punches and has piercing blue eyes to warm any soul. Instead, it is the character himself, a pretty boring street-rat with really no personality, no future goal beyond fixing a broken machine, only plenty of buckets of sorrow and whining. The character drags the story so much that it impacts the screen-time of the rest of the supporting players, who have more interesting darkness to them but at least try to see the better side of life.
Hugo simply can't carry HUGO. If Scorsese and Logan wanted to find a better suited protagonist, they should have dared to loosely adapt the book and put the focus and viewpoint of the story on Kingsley's granddaughter Isabelle. Played nicely by Chloe Grace Moretz, she is more engaging and has a better back story and personal drive to help out Kingsley. Fueled and influenced by the words and worlds of books, she is strangely banned to attend any movie theaters and seemingly hasn't thought to question it or adventure it out for herself. She even shares the sad personal history of Hugo's, even tying in with the film's focus on the effects of Europe after World War I. By going in this different direction, while retaining Hugo as a supporting player for Isabelle, the film could have completely justified being a complete family treasure instead of just feeling dull and way to somber to truly enjoy.
It really does hurt myself that such beautiful moments achieved by Scorsese are once again squandered by many missteps to make the film utterly disappointing. Make no mistake in my judgment, this is a film to check out, whether as a resident cinephile or a family night out at a 3D showing. I just wish the far too often depressing aspects were expunged or channeled better with a more compelling main character.
FINAL REVIEW: 3 / 5
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