I wasn't impressed. I thought the script was a total mess and lacked sense and pace and as much as I appreciate Marty's love for classic and silent cinema (me too) the form didn't match the content at all. Why make a film about wonderful old handmade, ingenious and painstakingly hand tinted films with a film made almost entirely within a computer and in 3D? When we got to see the beautiful simplicity of the silent movie sections it put everything Scorsese had done up to that point to shame for their sheer charm and wonder. Great if you've never seen any Melies, or Keaton or DW Griffith, but frankly I'd rather watch them again than over-emoting moppets and underwritten parts for British character actors stumbling around a highly fanciful CGI Paris.
"The characters marvel in wonder at what is happening around them, but there's no emotional content to it -- there's nothing to make the audience feel connected to the movie. The feel is very cold and stale.This is an attempt by a 70-year old man, who has spent his life making violent and serious films, to capture childhood whimsy, but it doesn't work."
I really enjoyed some aspects of this movie: cinematography, art direction, soundtrack, and above all other things its love for movie making and for that special place movies take us to. But I thought it had no rhythm, no punctuation, the story didn't flow in a natural way. It was really quite a strange feeling, I must say. Even though the actors were quite good it was as if there was an unnatural delay between their responses to one another and towards what happened around them. And this lack of coherence sometimes brought up a sense of emptiness regarding the plot and characters. I thought it's script was really flawed and for me that's what turned a film that could very well be a fascinating voyage about the love for the art of movies into something quite weak. What a waste of good ideas...
I didn't know anything about the plot before seeing this movie, so I was originally perplexed as to why Marty Scorsese would direct a whimsical family-oriented 3D film. Having watched the movie now, it now makes total sense, as it's plot eventually becomes about the preservation of early silent films... I keep seeing him in PSAs for the Film Foundation talking about just that sort of thing! Mystery solved.
Gorgeous, simply wonderful. I'm a silent film lover and an advocate of film preservation, so this felt like it was just made for me. Beautiful acting, beautifully directed, and some sweet side stories as well. I also appreciated all of the references and nods to not just Melies, but all the filmmaking pioneers. Way to go, Scorsese.
I can easily see what drew Martin Scorsese to Hugo - a boy looking at the world through a window, a love of cinema history and preservation - but the film (possibly like the book it's adapted from), doesn't really work as a cohesive piece. It could have been a biopic of (and love letter to) George Méliès, director of countless films in cinema's earliest era, including Voyage to the Moon. When we flash back to the 1910s, there's real magic in the air, and Scorsese captures at least some of the magic of those old fantasies. Or it could have been a fairy tale about an orphan living inside the walls of a railway station, fixing up an old automaton that might hold a message from his dead father, always escaping the clutches of a cartoonish inspector out to get him. The two stories feel bric-a-bracked together most awkwardly. History went the same way without the fictional Hugo to help it along, so he feels like a Spielberg kid there to pull at your heart strings, a boy who's interest in movies feels odd because he lives in an artificial world of celluloid already. And though that world sometimes feels like Méliès' - the colors, the bit with the mouse - its Dickensian melodrama and literary dialog belong to other eras entirely. Hugo has many things going for it, but it's missing key nuts and bolts for it to really work on all cylinders.
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dombrewer
I wasn't impressed. I thought the script was a total mess and lacked sense and pace and as much as I appreciate Marty's love for classic and silent cinema (me too) the form didn't match the content at all. Why make a film about wonderful old handmade, ingenious and painstakingly hand tinted films with a film made almost entirely within a computer and in 3D? When we got to see the beautiful simplicity of the silent movie sections it put everything Scorsese had done up to that point to shame for their sheer charm and wonder. Great if you've never seen any Melies, or Keaton or DW Griffith, but frankly I'd rather watch them again than over-emoting moppets and underwritten parts for British character actors stumbling around a highly fanciful CGI Paris.monty
"The characters marvel in wonder at what is happening around them, but there's no emotional content to it -- there's nothing to make the audience feel connected to the movie. The feel is very cold and stale.This is an attempt by a 70-year old man, who has spent his life making violent and serious films, to capture childhood whimsy, but it doesn't work."igft
I really enjoyed some aspects of this movie: cinematography, art direction, soundtrack, and above all other things its love for movie making and for that special place movies take us to. But I thought it had no rhythm, no punctuation, the story didn't flow in a natural way. It was really quite a strange feeling, I must say. Even though the actors were quite good it was as if there was an unnatural delay between their responses to one another and towards what happened around them. And this lack of coherence sometimes brought up a sense of emptiness regarding the plot and characters. I thought it's script was really flawed and for me that's what turned a film that could very well be a fascinating voyage about the love for the art of movies into something quite weak. What a waste of good ideas...DJPowWow
I didn't know anything about the plot before seeing this movie, so I was originally perplexed as to why Marty Scorsese would direct a whimsical family-oriented 3D film. Having watched the movie now, it now makes total sense, as it's plot eventually becomes about the preservation of early silent films... I keep seeing him in PSAs for the Film Foundation talking about just that sort of thing! Mystery solved.musicguyguy
A fine movie, aimed to be understandable to younger children.This would have been more popular in a different era, one not full of cynicism.
bellus_nox
Gorgeous, simply wonderful. I'm a silent film lover and an advocate of film preservation, so this felt like it was just made for me. Beautiful acting, beautifully directed, and some sweet side stories as well. I also appreciated all of the references and nods to not just Melies, but all the filmmaking pioneers. Way to go, Scorsese.Siskoid
I can easily see what drew Martin Scorsese to Hugo - a boy looking at the world through a window, a love of cinema history and preservation - but the film (possibly like the book it's adapted from), doesn't really work as a cohesive piece. It could have been a biopic of (and love letter to) George Méliès, director of countless films in cinema's earliest era, including Voyage to the Moon. When we flash back to the 1910s, there's real magic in the air, and Scorsese captures at least some of the magic of those old fantasies. Or it could have been a fairy tale about an orphan living inside the walls of a railway station, fixing up an old automaton that might hold a message from his dead father, always escaping the clutches of a cartoonish inspector out to get him. The two stories feel bric-a-bracked together most awkwardly. History went the same way without the fictional Hugo to help it along, so he feels like a Spielberg kid there to pull at your heart strings, a boy who's interest in movies feels odd because he lives in an artificial world of celluloid already. And though that world sometimes feels like Méliès' - the colors, the bit with the mouse - its Dickensian melodrama and literary dialog belong to other eras entirely. Hugo has many things going for it, but it's missing key nuts and bolts for it to really work on all cylinders.Earring72
Sweet and gentle childrens movie and an ode to the cinemathe3rdman
Overrated but not terrible. Nice tribute to G.M., but the orphan and his robot seem a bit trite by comparison. Always with the orphans!Fenring
Beautiful bullshit with great love to the history of cinemamsdenardin
Just OK.CSSCHNEIDER
I loved the film history lesson it teaches, but the rest of the movie left me cold. Not good enough.Rohit
If you were/are in awe of the films of Georges Melies, this is more of a love letter to films that you'd understand than The Artist.Heyannyong
loved the fact that people got exposed to many silent films they would normally have not even bothered watching!Agrimorfee
Hard to believe this is really the same Chloe Moretz of Kick Ass!Showing items 1 – 15 of 71