Hugo: Review By MovieWiz001

Academy Award - winning director, Martin Scorsese has just turned 69 on November 17th. Today, on November 23rd, he presents to us a film of art. When this film was first announced, the first thing that came to my head was the Danish franchise "Jungledyret Hugo". I'm really expecting for someone to remake that film into a worldwide presentation. Anyway, when "Hugo" first came out with it's first trailer, it made it look like it was going to be very cheesy, but visually stunning. I would call that false advertisement, because I didn't think that the music by 30 Seconds to Mars worked well and they really put a lot of emphasis in the 3D. When the second trailer came, I became more interested. The music in the background, by Audiomachine, really helped out the magic in this movie. And so I said: "Alright, I'm seeing it". I've decided to go see it in 3D, because of all the comments I've heard about. The said "It's the best 3D since 'Avatar'" (NOT!).Of course, we've all expected this to be a film for the whole family, but it's actually not in my perspective. There was something else I saw in this movie that made it magical. And that would be the fact that it's absolutely one of the most inspirational films for a kid!

"Hugo" is the astonishing adventure of a wily and resourceful boy whose quest to unlock a secret left to him by his father will transform Hugo and all those around him, and reveal a safe and loving place he can call home.

I didn't find the film to be very entertaining, most of the time. It sort of felt a bit extended to me. The movie runs 2 hours, but it really felt like 3! All of the fun or exciting scenes are pretty far away from each other that it could be boring to some viewers. I'm not saying that I was getting bored by it, I enjoyed it for one reason only and I'll get to that soon. The 3D is not a worthy watch, because there is nothing to experience in 3D throughout the film, only a couple of clips. I would only recommend a 2D watch, for sure. Now, what made this film very inspirational is that it mainly focuses on creative minds. Any kid who wants to be a filmmaker, an artist, an inventor, or a magician will surely choose this film as their movie idol. There is like so many sequences in this film that focuses on each character's inspiration to all sorts of things, including film. Anyone with a creative mind should watch this movie for more faith.

One thing I find odd in the film is that in some sequences they use VFX techniques that we don't use anymore. They did a small miniature shot of that train crash scene. It crashes through the whole station and then (in miniature) it breaks through the windows of the station... But that scene really reminded me of something that actually happened...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Train_wreck_at_Montparnasse_1895.jpg

oh yeah...

When the train reached outside of the station it was obvious that the train wasn't large at all. But I think it was on purpose, because (SPOILER ALERT) that was a dream sequence and near the end of the film, they premiere a montage of clips by this director and one of the clips had a miniature train crashing just like that one. I don't know, it probably was, since it was a dream. (SPOILER OVER) Another odd VFX sequence was that they actually used stop-motion! Who uses stop-motion these days? Hugo was fixing a mouse toy perfectly and it started moving faster and more active than usual. It was obviously stop-motion. I can't believe I'm saying this but... CGI would work better, since there's really no other way. But hey, there were many sequences when the visual effects were great, top-notched, and astonishing; like whenever they show the whole city of Paris. And I really like how everything is very colorful and deeply detailed.

Martin Scorsese is a wonderful director. I mean he makes such brilliant films almost every time. His best film to me is "Goodfellas" which is one of the best gangster movies ever! Scorsese still haven't lost it, because he really did a great job, not his best, but a great job. There were only a couple of sequences that needed to be edited better, but the best filming sequence was when Hugo was traveling through the clockwork rooms. Obviously you know you can't follow the boy in one shot through that scene, so I'm pretty sure they used visual effects to make it look like it was filmed in one shot which was very realistic.

Okay, sorry to end this quickly, but there's not much to say. Of course, "The Lord of the Ring's" Howard Shore did an excellent job throughout the film. The performances were great, especially Asa Butterfield. He really knows how to act an emotional scene. This is not one of the most entertaining films of the year, but one of the best inspirational films for a person who has a creative and artistic mind... like us. I'm the MovieWiz, thanks for reading.