Hugo (2011)

I've been wanting to see this since I saw a preview on the Oscars. So I found it on Netflix and watched it with Azalea, my daughter.  It's a very kid-friendly movie. Of course she also watched The Thing with me and clapped and cheered whenever there was an explosion.

Hugo starts off like a typical children's novel. Kid living by himself but doing great emotionally and healthwise and always clean.  There's obviously some kind of adult who's hellbent on catching him. Drama! Bleh.

Hugo keeps a remarkable creepy robot-thing in his train station apartment and busies himself trying to fix it, just like his dad did before he passed away. Hugo keeps it at the table, like a doll or plaything. But look at this thing!

I could never keep something as creepy as this in my house. It spent the entire movie glaring at me with its soulless eyes, like a shark’s. I kept expecting for that thing to stand up and stab Hugo.

Then the story really begins to pick up whenever they discover what the robot-thing can do - It drew a picture of the moon from A trip to the Moon (1902).  I am super glad that I watched this movie before I watched Hugo, because Hugo really focuses on old movies and one of their directors, Georges Méliès.  It showed his passion for movie-making and story telling, and how the reality of war cut that short.  He lost his dream and now is stuck working at a shop in a train station. No wonder he is depressed.  But, at the end, he is finally recognized for his genius, and many of his films are found and restored, including the one I watched.

I will give this a B+ because it reminded me of an Asimov novel - It was a beautifully intricate film, it just took forever to get to its point.