At the 84th Academy Awards, Hugo received five Oscars—for cinematography, art direction, visual effects, sound, and sound editing—and its 11 total nominations was the most for the evening. Hugo also won two BAFTAs and was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards, earning Scorsese his third Golden Globe Award for Best Director. [Wikipedia]
"In 1931, Hugo Cabret, a 12-year-old boy, lives with his widowed father, a master clockmaker in Paris. Hugo's father takes him to see films and particularly loves the films of Georges Méliès. Hugo's father dies in a museum fire, and Hugo is taken away by his uncle, an alcoholic watchmaker who is responsible for maintaining the clocks in the railway station Gare Montparnasse. His uncle teaches him to take care of the clocks and then disappears.
Hugo lives between the walls of the station, maintaining the clocks, stealing food and working on his father's most ambitious project: repairing a broken automaton, a mechanical man who is supposed to write with a pen. Convinced the automaton contains a message from his father, Hugo goes to desperate lengths to fix it. He steals mechanical parts to repair the automaton, but he is caught by a toy store owner, Georges Méliès, who takes Hugo's notebook from him, with notes and drawings for fixing the automaton.
To recover the notebook, Hugo follows Méliès to his house and meets Isabelle, an orphan close to his age and Georges' goddaughter. She promises to help. The next day, Méliès gives some ashes to Hugo, referring to them as the notebook's remains, but Isabelle informs him that the notebook was not burnt. Finally Méliès agrees that Hugo may earn the notebook back by working for him until he pays for all the things he stole from the shop.
Hugo works in the toy shop, and in his time off manages to fix the automaton, but it is still missing one part—a heart–shaped key." [Wikipedia]
This is as much a family movie as one can get, pretty much. No language, no bad jokes, no needless violence, or anything! The only downsides are a few plot holes, one slightly odd dream, and one scene where a character appears drunk.
I hadn't heard anyone else mention the plot holes, so I'll explain:
Whether or not Hugo needed the notebook full of notes to fix the automaton or not, we never see what happens to the notebook! We see it burned, but then are told that was faked and it wasn't burned - so where is it??
Near the end, we also have the cop (shown right-->) learn that the guy who normally wound the clocks at the station has likely been dead for over a month, and is confused as to who is actually running the clocks.
Later we see him chasing Hugo in the clock tower, and are only left to assume that he now knows who's been running the clocks - but do we? Nothing at all is said then or afterward about the clocks - nothing! Sure, it's a trivial bit there, but I noticed it. All-in-all though it was a good family movie, not awesome (cause I like more action) but very clean and good, with a good pace.
I was pleasantly surprised to see Christopher Lee (Count Dooku, Saruman, Monsieur Labisse in Hugo) in it! His voice is a little sinister for a librarian who doesn't play a sinister part perhaps, but it's an awesome voice, and he played his part well.
What do I rate it: 8 1/3 out of 10!
Who would I recommend this to: Just about everyone, though not to hard-core Action Flick watchers unless they like both sides of the spectrum. It's a family movie with some mystery involved, so I'd recommend this to kids and families who like mystery movies with less action (and drinking) than Tintin.
To Happy Watching!
~KnightlySamurai
P.S.: Forgot to mention I found another site with a review on this. Check it out! http://cosmictwinsmedia.com/2011/12/20/hugo/
