1-05-12 Movie Review: Hugo

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It has been reported that Martin Scorcese claims he made Hugo so there would be at least one of his movies that his daughter could see, and Hugo is a surprisingly satisfactory PG from the maker of Goodfellas and Raging Bull, whether its closing invitation to “Come dream with me” fits the Scorcese canon or not. The ending section resorts to chases and last-second rescues and other stock melodrama conventions, but most of it is unusual and maybe original; I haven’t read the children’s classic it is based on.

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It features performances by juveniles Asa Butterfield and Chloe Grace Moretz that suggests Scorcese has a real touch with juveniles, and of course we can always count on Ben Kingsley. Butterfield is a perfect period juvenile lead who looks like Tintin, and the set is wonderfully 1930s and is used inside and out, with perhaps a few too many odd camera angles involving peepholes, and tracking shots through crowds and up and down narrow crooked stairways that seem like show-off shots to show they could get the camera through them, but every prop, costume, and detail is going to drive antique lovers crazy with desire. The tribute to French movie pioneer George Melies is an original touch and should lead to DVD sales of his eccentric works, which are largely available. The plot is good old noble-orphan-against-the-world Dickens-type science fiction without any effort to be modern. It’s rare to see a master in one genre triumph in another one, but that’s what Martin Scorcese has done, and I may like his work more in the future than I have in the past.