Movie review by Russell Pinkston

Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) is a 12 year boy living with his father in Paris during the early 1930’s. His father, a clockmaker (Jude Law) finds an automaton (a chrome metal robot) in a museum and together they begin to fix it. But his father dies in a fire and Hugo is forced to live with his alcoholic uncle (Ray Winstone) at the Paris train station where his uncle keeps the train station clocks wound and in working order. He teaches Hugo to do the job and then abandons him. Hugo continues with the upkeep of the clocks and lives alone in the train station. He steals food to survive and steals parts to repair the automaton. He believes if he can fix it…it might deliver a message from his dead father. He must keep away from the officer (Sacha Baron Cohen) who patrols the train station.
Hugo gets caught stealing parts from a toy shop owner and has his notebook with information on how to repair the automaton. He meets the toy shop owner’s goddaughter, Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz). He introduces Isabelle to movies, she has never seen one before. Hugo use to go the the theater to see movies with his father. Hugo especially likes the movies of Georges Méliès. Together Isabelle and Hugo try to solve the mystery of the automaton.
Hugo is based on the novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. Asa Butterfield (The Boy With the Stripe Pyjamas, Nanny McPhee Returns) is really good as the lead character Hugo. I always like seeing Chloë Grace Moretz in movies….especially in her breakout role as Hit-Girl in Kick-Ass. I am not a big fan of Ben Kingsley (Gandhi, Lucky # Slevin). He was ok. It’s nice to see Sacha Baron Cohen in a non-idiot role (Borat, The Dictator). When he is serious like Sweeney Todd, he’s not bad. Sometimes he’s just too over the top with his characters (2012 Oscars).
This is a solid movie, it’s well written and it was directed by Martin Scorsese (The Departed, Goodfellas). It probably would have looked good in 3D but this is not the kind of movie that I like to see. I say RENT IT but it’s one of those movies that I will probably will only watch once.