Film Review: HUGO

Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) and George Melies (Ben Kingsley) first struck a conversation when the boy steals machinery pieces in order to revive a broken automaton, which was the only living tangible memory Hugo has with his late father. The film then introduces the casts by Hugo peeking behind a great clock, usually behind the no. 4. One thing led to another when the time came for Hugo to learn that the automaton was first brought to life by George Melies himself, the grumpy old man behind his toy store counter. With the help of Melies goddaughter, Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz), Hugo will learn that the automaton doesn't contain a hidden message from his late father. Eventually, Hugo and George reconciled each other as they discover together the past and the reawakened best kept past.

What I loved about Hugo is its beautiful cinematography. Surely, you will go to an exciting adventure with this film and it is all because of the visuals. From the very beginning establishing shots to the last, Hugo didn't fail to capture the film's audience. This factor is the backbone of this film. With only its cinematography and as well as the lighting, Hugo can be one of the best, in shots and in visual effects. Scenes were mostly shot in a studio, but it paid well and done justice coerced with computer-generated effects to stun its viewers.

Photo by Jaap Buitendijk – © 2011 GK Films. All Rights Reserved.

True people like George Melies and his story on the birth of films being included as the one of the main story lines is definitely a double plus. The monumental moon in one of Melies' films is only a depiction on how wonderful Melies' mind works. His creativity had become a vital aspect as he continues to search ways in producing films while war goes on at that time. 

Although with the film's history-based story line, loopholes can be distinguished. Aside from the factual mistakes like time of an event's occurrence and the location of famous landmarks in the film, there are weird and irrelevant parts, too. One of these is how Hugo so much revolved around his father and his last memory, and actually became an overrated part of the film. This, only to find out, was only a minor detail in the connection of the main story of Hugo and Melies. It lost the importance of Hugo's late father, as the film established greatly on how Hugo's father came across the automaton. And in the end, the audience didn't understand the relevance of Hugo's father's great existence in the film. Another loophole I caught was the faulty continuity of the shots. The obvious, I guess, is in this one scene where Hugo finds the end tail of the key buried in a train track on the first frame. Next frame shows the whole key atop a wood plank of the train track. Others need a keen eye in spotting them, but it's still faulty either way.

Director Martin Scorsese's Hugo takes you to this historical-based adventure where reality does not seem so much as so. George Melies' prowess in the development of the film era is to say an understatement. Melies, in person, with his undeniable wildly creative mindset bursting with talent is highly commendable. All of these elements and more accompanied by a capturing musical scoring all throughout the film worked. 

For this film, I'll give it 8.5/10. It's not the most perfect and error-free film, but the visuals saved it over-all and perhaps, my amazement at George Melies' intelligence as well.