Hugo Review
Summary: In 1931 Paris, an orphan living in the walls of a train station gets wrapped up in a mystery involving his late father and an automaton.
- Starring: Asa Butterfield, Chloë Grace Moretz, Christopher Lee
- Director: Martin Scorsese
- Writer: John Logan
- Rating: PG
- Runtime: 2h 6m
- 3D Type: Native
Story:
Hugo is based on the novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick.
Hugo lives in the boarding room of the train station’s deceased timekeeper, whilst caring for all of the clocks, stealing food to survive, and watching the locals from inside the walls and peepholes.
Hugo’s father, a clock repairman, dies in a fire accident and leaves behind a broken automaton. The automaton is a mechanical doll that was rescued from a local museum and was the last thing he was working on before he died. Hugo uses his father’s notebook to try and complete the repairs by stealing parts from a toy shop, owned by a man named Georges Méliès (Ben Kingsley). Georges Méliès catches Hugo stealing, and in turn, confiscates his book and threatens to burn it. Hugo must work for him to repay the debt of his wrongdoings and retrieve the notebook.
Hugo befriends Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz), Georges Méliès’s daughter, who work together to unravel the mystery of the automaton and the mystery behind it.
I have not read the book but I found the story to be wonderfully paced and a nice little mystery adventure. The tension between Hugo and George Méliès is interesting, as from different generations, both have a troubled past but learn from each other.
Picture:
The picture quality in Hugo is superb with meticulous attention to detail. For example, the textures of clothes, and the intricacies of the gears, clocks, and mechanical objects are all precisely detailed which is so satisfying to watch.
The 3D version is bright with vibrant colours, costumes, and lighting, which punch through the 3D glasses and are not detracted at all.
Sound:
DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 is present here. It consists of outstanding attention to detail that matches the picture quality level. This includes a rich, wide soundstage where you can hear the ticking of clocks, grinding of cogs, the thumping of steam trains, and the bustling and chatter of a crowded train station. It is all top-notch and can’t really be faulted.
The music score was done by Howard Shore with superb clarity with themes that develop over the course of the film.
3D
Here Martin Scorsese uses 3D for the first time and does a marvelous job with it. Hugo was hyped up to be a movie that pushes the 3D format forward, and it certainly does that. After seeing this movie in 3D, I could not imagine seeing it in 2D.
Pop:
There isn’t much pop here, or it’s very subtle. At the very start, you have snowflakes, floating down and popping toward you, though this is just initially demonstrating the 3D. Throughout the film, there is smoke, steam, and dust kind of drifting out at you. There’s a scene where a Doberman is chasing Hugo through the station and lunges out at you and another where the station inspector (Sasha Baron Cohe) leans towards the camera. However, it’s all very subtle and done with more depth than pop. Scorsese wasn’t interested in using 3D as a gimmick. There’s no real boom ‘in your face’ 3D pop here, instead, it goes the Avatar route, which isn’t a bad thing at all.
Depth:
This movie has brilliant depth of field right from the start. A fly through a bustling crowded 1931’s Paris train station, steam and smoke effects filling the air. The rows of many people going about their day. The depth of the scope of the clock towers. The foreground of the many spinning gears, clocks, and mechanisms. The snowflakes fall down over the beautiful recreated city. There’s a constant sense of width and depth throughout. Even the dust particles are finely detailed. Every camera shot in the movie, high or low, seems to have been very carefully planned, and the layers of depth are where this film really shines. You really feel like you are there in 1930s Paris.
Verdict:
Hugo is a mechanical engineer’s dream. It is a delightful family adventure film that is unique in every way. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it is definitely worth a spot in anyone’s 3D film collection. It proves that 3D isn’t just a gimmick, which Scorsese set out to do.
Category | Scores |
---|---|
Story: | ★★★★★ |
Picture: | ★★★★★ |
Sound: | ★★★★★ |
Pop: | ★★ |
Depth: | ★★★★★ |
TOTAL SCORE: | 22/25 |