It's clearly a labour of love; beautifully crafted and visually stunning in places. Is it a feature film though? I'm not wholly sure that it is. There's an awful lot of what Dr Kermode calls 'Basil Exposition', the character (sometimes more than one in this movie) who tells us what's going or or what the back story might be or have been and why this, that or the other plot point or development is significant. And talking of plot one can't help but recall the ways the good doctor has often railed against what he sees as the death of narrative structure in much modern, mainstream movie-making. Well, Hugo clearly is a long way from Michael Bay's assaults on the art form or POTC 1,2,3 or 4 - have we had four? I forget. Nevertheless, the narrative structure is slight at best. It's as if Mr Scorsese wanted to impress upon us all how magical and important was the work of the early French inventors of movie-making. That's fine but Hugo, although well-meant, well-intended, worthy even (not a word normally associated with MS) is neither a good documentary nor a great film with an irresistible story to tell us. Bereft of any true drama and with under-developed characters (including a criminal waste of Ray Winstone, Christopher Lee, Francis de la Tour and Richard Griffiths) I left feeling that style had triumphed over beauty, form over content.
The movie's Oscar nominations say more about the industry's fondness for nostalgia and its (justified) respect for Mr Scorsese. Neither of those make Hugo anything close to being a great film. Fifty years from now viewers will watch the best of Scorsese with wonder and awe. Hugo won't be among them.
