Saturday, March 10, 2012

Hugo (no spoilers)


I rarely watch movies, but DH recently brought home “Hugo”. Prior to watching it, I knew very little about it except that it had won numerous awards and had received good reviews. I figured it would be an uplifting story about a little boy. Well, I was wrong. Although the little boy (Hugo) was involved with most aspects of the story, the movie itself was not solely about him. The story was not just his that we were watching. Little did I know that the background story (which ended up becoming the foreground story) was based on someone who really existed. I had not heard of the man before, but now I know a lot about him and how he contributed to things that we see today. That said, some portions of the movie were predictable.

One of the big raves about “Hugo” was about its visual effects. The story was kind of dark, but the movie was visually dark, too. The few times Hugo goes outside, it’s usually at night. He lives in a Parisian train station (think coal-burning steam trains) and works behind the scenes (lots of industrial-type scenery). The story takes place in 1931, so it’s the era of the Great Depression, between WWI and WWII. There are also elements of orphans/orphanages and references to WWI. Much of the movie is given to a past life of success and an unfulfilled, depressing current life. I thought the movie made very effective use of lighting.

I thought the actors were good, too. The young boy who played Hugo got a lot of mileage out of his big, blue eyes. It was Ben Kingsley who I enjoyed the most, although I couldn’t help but notice a resemblance to Patrick Stewart.

All in all, I would recommend this movie.  The story is good and is well told. Besides, DH is enjoying it even more now that he’s watching it in his 3-D glasses!

5 comments:

  1. I hope it comes to instant on Netflix sometime soon. Would love to see it. We go out to the movies once a year...on New Year's Day.

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  2. I had been on the fence about seeing it. Maybe it'll make somewhere in my que. lol

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  3. when I weent to Melbourne with my kids they took me to see this,said reviews had been ok.i ad no idea what it was about other than the automaton.that reminded me of another story so i said ,that will do! I loved it!!! The history was well told,and made the story all the more poignant because I hadn't heard of him. I'm going to see it again!!!i liked the little sideline stories and baron von whatsit was hilarious as the orphan hating guardamme!

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  4. We just watched this one recently. I quite liked it but hubby wasn't entertained at all (although he did say Sasha Baron Cohen was the best part of the whole film) The images are so beautiful but I had no idea this was based on a real person. How interesting.

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  5. this was one of the movies I wanted to see. Someday I'll get around to watching it.

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