TMG Scale  6.0    P Factor 0.0     MPAA Rating: PG
Starring  Asa Butterfield, Chloe Moretz, Ray Winstone, Ben Kingsley, Christopher Lee

Joy Lynn: Hugo is a visually entertaining movie that makes great use of 3-D. The best I have ever seen. Instead of throwing objects at the audience, Director Martin Scorsese provides scenes that give you depth using tall clock towers, narrow walkways and train stations.

Unfortunately, the movie is painfully slow and too long.  There appears to be two plots that have little to do with each other until finally they haplessly connect in the end. It takes almost the entire movie before it turns the corner.  Up until then, Hugo meanders around the train station with no goal in sight.

Hugo (Butterfield) is a young boy with stunning blue eyes that lives among the clocks in a Parisian train station in the early 1930s. After his father dies, he is taken in by his uncle who is the clock keeper at the train station. Hugo spends most of the movie trying to find parts (actually stealing) to fix an automaton (a man figured robot that is made up of clock parts) his father found many years ago.  With his father deceased, the automaton is his only connection to the past and to his happiness. Hugo’s only friend is Isabelle played by Moretz. At this point, the story takes a turn and begins with Hugo introducing his eccentric friend, Isabelle to films.  Isabelle turns out to have the key to the automaton that unlocks a drawing of a film scene Hugo remembers his father telling him about. They both discover that the film was created by Isabelle’s godfather, a filmmaker that once owned the automaton.  In the end, Isabelle’s godfather meets up with some filmmakers that are showing his movies in a theater.

This film was made to be a 3D film but lacks a moving and stimulating story.  The focus was on the visual effects and leaves your mind empty . . . like an automaton!