Hugo
Director: Martin Scorsese
Year Released: 2011
Rating: 2.5
A fatherless child (Asa Butterfield), who works on the clocks in the Montparnasse station in Paris, meets a new gal-pal (Chloë Grace Moritz), befriends a noble toy maker (Ben Kingsley) - who has an intriguing past - and works on a broken automaton his late father (Jude Law) was working on. Ultimately, it's a $170 million dollar homage to the beginning of movies, lacking in drama - when it needs a bit of that, it drags in Sacha Baron Cohen's lovesick station inspector - and rather average as 'fantasy' (Scorsese has always been more of a realist; this is Spielberg territory). Not a whole lot takes place, but it is pleasant to look at (especially those that adore train stations, like me) and Scorsese's continued love for all things cinematic is endearing: though this amounts to being basically a meta-film, it reminds all cineastes why we bother sitting in the dark in the first place.
