Movie review - "Hugo" (2011) **1/2

Beautiful to look at and made with a lot of love but Martin Scorsese is clearly awkward with a story set in Paris, which is probably why everyone acts in English accents. He's also not that skilled telling stuff through the eyes of a child, which is presumably why this gets off to such an awkward start - it shouldn't because the set up is simple (orphan lives in train station repairing clock) but it proceeds in fits and starts, awkward visual gags, and too many scenes where the characters say the word "notebook". I think they miscast the kid who plays Hugo, too - he's got piercing eyes (was this why he got the gig?) but he just feels all wrong - whereas his puppy love interest is spot on.

For a while I really struggled with this - I tuned out and started to nod off. Two terrific moments - a train smash and Hugo discovering he's a robot - just turn out to be dreams, which is cheating. It picked up once we found out that Kingsley was George Melies and we saw some flashbacks - at least he did interesting stuff with his life, and we get into the magic of it all. (Only if films are the most important thing in Melies life... then why is the automaton so important? That doesn't really have anything to do with cinema.)

I can see why the elderly Academy voters liked it - it's about a man who is old and forgotten, yet still has a wife and god-daughter who love him, an academic who rediscovers him and gives him a retrospective, a little kid who thinks he's really cool. It's also full of loving recreations of 1920s Paris and early silent cinema.