Like all the best kid’s films, Hugo isn’t really for kids. To say it’s the best movie ever made about an orphan and a forgotten director in a Parisian train station is probably an understatement. Of all the movies I’m reviewing today, this is without a doubt the one I would recommend, and yet Hugo did pitiful business compared to The Muppets (solid, but not as good) and even Arthur Christmas (not-as-solid). I really have no idea if actual kids will like Hugo–there weren’t a lot of them in the theater I saw it in–but at the end of the day, who cares? Kid’s entertainment in 2011 can be ridiculously shallow and kids need to learn to like movies like Hugo, and exposing them to something with this much heart and soul is a step in the right direction. Hugo isn’t just the best kid’s film I’ve seen this year (especially since Pixar gave us their first misfire ever in Cars 2), it’s one of the best movies of the year period.
What Works: Hugo is an odd film that’s not for everyone. That’s also what works so well about it. For every person who will get bored watching the title orphan navigate his way around a turn-of-the-century Parisian train station, trying to avoid capture to the orphanage and putting up with his alcoholic uncle while attempting to get a robot to work again, there’s someone that will get caught up in this slowly absorbing, rich movie. This is the kind-of kid’s film that Disney used to make when it really cared about grand entertainment. Also, Hugo’s tribute to movies (the movie features Ben Kingsley as one of the medium’s very first directors) is fantastic. As a lifelong movie fan, the ending was really moving to me.
What Doesn’t Work: Not all of Hugo’s subplots really work (Sacha Baron Cohen’s over-the-top station guard and his romance are never fully fleshed out, Jude Law in flashbacks as Hugo’s deceased dad) and the movie is a good fifteen minutes too long, but why split hairs when the overall works so well?
What I Would Have Done Differently: At times the movie’s casual pace and sprawling narrative feels a little aimless, so I would have made a couple dozen small cuts. Nothing too major though. I think hurrying the pace too much would be much worse than the movie stands now, and would ultimately change the entire vibe of what works so well in this movie: getting transported to an unhurried world that doesn’t really exist anymore, and discovering that it always will as long as we have movies.
Glad you like the movie, I am looking forward to seeing it. In fact I think the fall might have better movies than those that came out this summer. I am looking forward to Tintin (because I am obsessed with Tintin), the new Holmes, Mission Impossible, Jolie’s new movie and I am missing a couple.
You will no doubt watch them all before I do.
Cheers Mate,
I can’t say Hugo will be for everyone–that’s also what I like about it–but I think they can say it’s a fresh “family” movie in a genre that was getting pretty stale with just pop-culture based cartoons and movies about talking animals.