Ed's Review Dot Com

GK Films, Infinitum Nihil

Asa Butterfield, Chloe Moretz, Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen, Ray Winstone, Emily Mortimer, Jude Law, Christopher Lee, Helen McCrory, Michael Stuhlbarg

Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) is an orphan. He lived with his dad who was a clock maker and worked in a museum who was suddenly killed in a fire at the museum. Hugo was taken to live with his Uncle Claude (Ray Winstone) who was a drunkard but had the job of living inside the walls of the Paris train station in the 1930’s and wind the clocks. He took in Hugo, but kept him hidden to do all the work while he relaxed. Then he went missing. Hugo’s Dad had a broken little mechanical man that they were trying to repair. Hugo took on the part of restoring the robot. Hiding from the station guard (Sacha Baron Cohen) and scavenging for the parts to fix the little automatron. He makes a few friends and gets involved with the daughter of a famous person and gets into one adventure after another in attempting to survive inside the walls and solve the mystery that his father left to him.

This very unique and wonderfully done film by Martin Scorsese has the feel of a true story. In fact, it’s not, however the background info of a famous Parisian cinematographer Georges Melies (Ben Kingsley) is basically all true. The history of him and his films, and the running of the toy shop in the station is factual. Much of Melies work is shown in the film. You can read info from Wikipedia on George Melies by clicking here.

But this film is a fabulous story. It has the look and feel of a great adventure film, with the historical background to make it plausible and feel real. The young actors who play Hugo and Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz) are very, very good. They pull this off splendidly. Of course Ben Kingsley is absolutely awesome as always and adds a great deal to the story. Sacha Baron Cohen plays a funny but dedicated security guard who is really annoying, but he’s perfect for the character. He is as dedicated to catching Hugo as Gargamel is to catching the Smurfs!!!

All in all, this is a wonderful film for the whole family. I saw it in 3D and that part of it was excellent as well. This is probably because of the genius of Martin Scorsese and his experience with CinemaScope in the past. It’s doing very well in the box office, as it should, and is probably the most original story we’ve seen in many years. I highly recommend this film for the whole family. The kids will love the action and wonderful world inside the clocks, and the adults will love the mystery and solving the problem of who has done what. This is a fantastic movie for sure.

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