Year: 2011
Genre: Kids, Period
Country: United States
Language: English
Starring: Asa Butterfield, Chloe Grace Moretz, Ben Kingsley, Jude Law, Sacha Baron Cohen, Christopher Lee, Ray Winstone, Emily Mortimer
Director: Martin Scorcese
Run time: 126 minutes
DVD distributor: Paramount Home Entertainment
Martin Scorcese has done something that I never thought Martin Scorcese could do. I knew he could make amazing gangster movies, great rock and roll documentaries, and intense thrillers. But he’s made a kids movie with no murders at all, and it’s GREAT!
Hugo is an incredible film, visually stunning and thoroughly charming. It’s about a little boy named Hugo who lives in a massive railway station in Paris in the early 30s. His parents are dead, his uncle has vanished, and Hugo runs around the inner workings of the clocks in the station, winding them and making them all run on time. Hugo is trying to put together a puzzle left for him by his father, he’s running away from the station inspector, and he’s tentatively making friends with Isabelle, the god-daughter of the station’s toy store owner.
Together, Hugo and Isabelle set out to solve the mystery that connects his dead father with her god father. The actors are wonderful, especially Chloe Grace Moretz as Isabelle and Ben Kingsley as her guardian Georges. But what makes Hugo such a charming and wonderful fantasy is Scorcese’s palpable and infectious love of movies.
Hugo is, in many ways, as much of a tribute to the silent movie era and film pioneers as is The Artist. And coming to DVD from Paramount Home Entertainment on February 28th, two days after both movies tied with five Oscars apiece, is perfect timing. Go out and get this movie. Hugo is magnificent, and it’s for more than just kids.