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This is a conundrum of unfinished story strands, created from undeveloped ideas, acted out by pseudo Dickensian characters whose lives exist around an eternally bustling Parisian train station which, unfortunately, doesn’t feel French at all.
Hugo (Asa Butterfield) lives with his father (Jude Law) and they have plans to repair an old mechanical robot, but tragedy strikes, his father dies and Hugo is taken by his uncle (Ray Winstone) to work and live in the train station clock. In the meantime, Hugo is caught stealing by George Melies (Ben Kingsley), who confiscates Hugo’s notebook and Hugo follows him home where he meets Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz), Melie’s adopted daughter. The two become friends and when Hugo introduces her to the movies, they discover that Melies was once a successful filmmaker but, for some reason, is hiding from his past. Hugo and Isabelle make it their business to get to the bottom of the mystery.
Homage is paid to Hugo for working so hard to fix the old robot, but all we ever see him do is give it a quick flick with a duster. A similar story-skip is when Hugo’s thieving uncle turns up, but we never see the two actually working and living in the same place. This also happens when Melies offers Hugo a job and we not only don’t see them together but Melies’ wife tries to hide Hugo from Melies at their apartment, behaving as if this bonding had never happened. We also meet someone who thought Melies died in the Great War, but this misunderstanding is simply forgotten so we can move clumsily on.
The theme of this story begins as being about time, then drifts into being about repairing things, then changes to moviemaking, and the existence of ‘coupledom’ also manages to sneak itself into the mix. There is an equal amount of conflict with the point of view, which starts off as being Hugo’s, but then Melies seems to take over the story, whose only problem seems to be his reluctance to admit that he once went bankrupt. This is an inadequate flaw around which to build a character and such a lack of substance results in a most forgettable and cheesy finale.
Hugo was shot on 3D, and has a budget of $170 million (that’s not a typo). Also shot in France this year was The Kid With a Bike, which is a compelling tale told from the point of view of an 11 year-old boy, and was made for a budget of $5 million. So, technically, the producers spent a cool $165 mill just to raz it all up and they now have to get a staggering number of bums on seats just to get their money back. Personally, I think a safer bet would be to go to Vegas and put it all on red, but there again, I never was much of a gambler.
RELEASE DATES
Canada – 23 November 2011
USA – 23 November 2011
Turkey – 2 December 2011
UK – 2 December 2011
France – 14 December 2011
Belgium – 21 December 2011
India – 23 December 2011
Mexico – 30 December 2011
Australia– 12 January 2012
New Zeald– 12 January 2012
Denmark – 19 January 2012
Norway – 20 January 2012
Israel – 26 January 2012
Spain – 27 January 2012
Czech Rep– 2 February 2012
Italy – 3 February 2012
Poland – 3 February 2012
Germany – 9 February 2012
Hungary – 9 February 2012
Nethlands– 9 February 2012
Portugal – 9 February 2012
Hong Kong– 16 February 2012
Brazil – 17 February 2012
Finland – 27 February 2012
Singapore– 15 March 2012
Sweden – 16 March 2012
Lithuania– 27 April 2012