I can't be fair and balanced and objective with this.
This movie...this movie EATS.
And I wouldn't have such a problem with it if it hadn't won FIVE OSCARS. FIVE?! Are you kidding me? The only thing this movie should have been up for was a Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Award!
The only reason anybody gave two rat turds about this movie was the fact that Martin Scorsese directed it. If this had been ANYONE else, it would haven been written off as whimsical fluff on the same level as "Free Willy" or "Babe." Because that's what it is, and screw all you who tell me different.
This is the movie industry trolling you. I'm serious. They got a kids movie full of do-nothing, pointless characters, a story that walks around in circles while dropping plot thread after plot thread until I'm not quite sure WHAT the whole point of it was, pack it to the brim with bright colors and so many sweeping camera moves that even Spielberg would say "take it easy on the majesty," all so we can have keys jangling in our faces with the OOH-LOOK-SHINY in order to distract us from the fact that it's on the same intellectual level as Thomas The God Damn Tank Engine.
And then they get Scorsese to direct it. Give it ALL THE OSCARS.
Watching "Hugo" is like having some kind of steam-punk flavored cotton candy force-fed under your eyelids until it dissolves and works its way into your brain for 2 hours, and I for one felt condescended to. Or at least, I would have felt manipulated if "Hugo" was the least bit effective. But it's not. It tries hard...so desperately hard to take you on a proverbial journey of wonderment and childlike innocence. Oh, it's so whimsical. Just look at the whimsy. Can't you see the whimsy, children? This is ever such a magical adventure we're having today.
Shut up.
They think I'm a sucker over here, but I know lite, brainless fluff when I see it and I'm not buying it! I don't give a crap about whimsical. I don't give a crap about how "magic" you think your movie is. I don't give a crap about the culture you think the movie has just because it's a period piece. And I don't give a crap whether or not you're Martin Scorsese! I don't give a crap about any of this stuff unless you have a story that is worth telling, and characters that I care about!
News flash, "Hugo!" You don't have that! The story is not worth telling because the characters are completely pointless. And as proof, I'm going to write down the cast list of all the characters in the movie with speaking roles and discuss what, if anything, they contribute to the plot. Ready? Let's go!
Now, one would think that the title character is the main character, yes? WRONG. At the beginning of the film, Hugo is most certainly the main character, but as the movie goes on it becomes clear that Georges Méliès is the person the story is really about. Hugo is just along for the ride. And the ride happens to be free because he's EVER SO LOVEABLE. D'aww. A filthy street urchin/thief. Let's adopt him! What about the other orphan who gets sent to the orphanage while kicking and crying for stealing a half-eaten pastry someone threw away? Was he not charming enough for you? Asshole.
Main Contribution: Giving an old dude a robot.
Ben Kinsley as Georges MélièsGeorges Méliès is who this story is really about. In the movie, the famous filmmaker got super depressed after the industry tanked and became a toy maker in a train station. By the end of the movie, because of seeing a movie of his again and getting back his old robot, he has rediscovered his...pride I guess? Evidently this robot meant so much to him that his life was hollow without it. You know, because his loving wife and god-daughter...they're not really important I guess. Asshole.
Main Contribution: Receiving a robot.
She's along for the ride. She's also Hugo's girlfriend I guess. Saddled with some truly bad dialogue including the "I-refuse-to-believe-someone-who-is-such-a-good-actress-would-say-it-that-way" line: "Don't you LIKE books?!"
Main Contribution: Wears a key around her neck.
Sacha Baron Cohen as The Station InspectorThe bad guy, if this movie actually had an antagonist...which it doesn't. Runs around doing pratfalls and being wacky with that damn dog of his. Nothing he does in the entire movie ends up mattering.
Main Contribution: Saves Hugo's life...which wouldn't have needed saving had the Station Inspector not been there in the first place. Pointless.
Hugo's deceased dad appears to be the major lynchpin in Hugo's character and a major aspect of the story before the movie just kind of forgets about him and moves on to other things halfway though.
Main Contribution: He dies.
A librarian who directs Hugo and Isabelle to a book with information...where they immediately meet someone right afterwards who tells them far more information than the book could have told them.
Main Contribution: Gives Hugo a book...which Hugo never reads or talks about once. Pointless.
This guy actually does something somewhat useful. He tells the kids what Georges Méliès did...which the book would have told them anyways...but he also has a copy of one of his movies, which he shows to Georges at the beginning of the climax of the film. Hugo could have just as easily stumbled across a copy, though. He didn't need Rene. The movie is already full of coincidences as it is. One more wouldn't have been out of place. Pointless.
Main Contribution: Runs a projector.
A drunk who dies after 5 lines. He was there and gone so fast I didn't even know it was Ray Winstone.
Main Contribution: Gives Hugo a home...in a place he could have lived had he just been homeless from the start. Pointless.
The love interest for the Station Inspector...who was a pointless character to begin with. But hey, she's there to show that the bad guy isn't completely evil. Which of course, might have been a useful character arc if the character mattered to begin with.
Main Contribution: Nothing. Pointless.
Wife of Georges Méliès who doesn't do a thing. But hey, Helen McCrory played "Whore #2" in "Interview With The Vampire." So I guess that's something. Pointless.
Main Contribution: A tie between making out with Brad Pitt in 1993 and looking a lot like Signorney Weaver.
Two bumbling, slack-jawed wastes who spend the whole damn movie awkwardly flirting. Do they do anything useful? TAKE A GUESS.
Main Contribution: Nothing x2.
I just went through the dozen most prominent characters. Nine of them could have been removed from the movie, and the plot would have stayed the same. The only movie with more banal, purposeless characters I think I've ever seen was "Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen." Hell, even in slasher movies the characters -- walking piles of meat as they admittedly are -- possess more purpose than they do in "Hugo." The characters in slasher flicks exist to be killed. Their purpose is to show how scary the bad guy is! The characters in "Hugo" eat up time. Freaking Paris Hilton in "House of Wax" was a more important character than Christopher Lee was in "Hugo." Oh yeah, that's right. I went there.
I can't tell you how sad that makes me.
The wasting of Christopher Lee aside, "Hugo" also squanders the phenomenal talents of Chloë Grace Moretz, who is one of my favorite actresses working right now. It's really amazing how good she is. I didn't know she was in this, but when she popped up I was like "HOLY CRAP! This might get good now!" Sadly, it didn't, and she and her talents are wasted with a boring character and terrible dialogue that you could tell was just acid on her tongue having to say it. The biggest shame is that this will be the movie that most people will have seen her in at this point. Not enough people saw "Kick-Ass" and freaking nobody saw "Let Me In," both of which she should have gotten Oscar nominations for.
No, "Hugo" will be the crap I'll have to bring up when talking to people about Chloë Grace Moretz now. And I just know some dumb-ass will say, "Wasn't that the girl from Harry Potter?"
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| I just know it's coming. |
I could write a novella about all the crap in "Hugo" that just left me shaking my head and asking "why," not only at the characters and plot but the hype and acclaim that this movie received. I found it insulting, actually, when shiny tripe like this gets farted out by a director whom people are terrified of critiquing or questioning, and it gets more awards than Scorsese could load up in a wheelbarrow to take home to put on his shelf of Oscars that he's getting now because "he's due." Meanwhile movies that are genuinely and objectively powerful and challenging like "Red State" are completely ignored because directors like Kevin Smith don't kiss the Academy's collective ass.
Everyone in Hollywood should be ashamed of themselves for letting them get away with it. At this point why don't you just retroactively give "Jumanji" Best Original Screenplay? Crap like this flies but objectively amazing stories like "The Golden Compass" bomb and the sequels to it get axed? It's pathetic.
Oh and one last thing! Why is there not one single god damn person with a French accent IN PARIS!?!?!?
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| "Fish n' chips 'oy guv'na?" |
THE BOTTOM LINE - "Hugo" is on the same intellectual level as any kid's movie starring Robin Williams or Eddie Murphy. And not good ones like "Ms. Doubtfire" or "The Nutty Professor," either. I'm talking "Flubber" here. I'm talking "Shrek" sequels. Just imagine one of those movies written to be really, really pretentious and full of itself. Piece of garbage. Skip it.
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