Martin Scorsese’s first foray into big-budget family filmmaking - as well as his inaugural effort in 3-D -Hugo is a personal statement disguised as a sellout.
Based on Brian Selznick’s 2007 illustrated kids’ book The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Hugo centers on its title character, played by Asa Butterfield, a just-prepubescent orphan squatting in a train station circa 1930, in the section of Movie Paris where everyone speaks English in a British accent. By day, when not dodging an orphan-hunting station constable (Sacha Baron Cohen), Hugo secretly maintains the station’s clocks. By night, he attempts to fix an automaton, the only keepsake the boy has from his watchmaker father (Jude Law), who died suddenly and mysteriously.
See www.villagevoice.com for full review
