I was not able to see HUGO in the theaters, so seeing it available on-Demand this weekend, I jumped at the chance to watch it. This has been on my “must see” list since it was first marketed. The graphics and artistic side of the film is what I was most interested in, seemed very intriguing to me… after seeing it, the entire film was well worth the wait.
I love the storyline as well as the visuals. The artistic details of the time period are extremely well done and almost mesmerizing. There's a sense of magic and I kept finding myself feeling like I wanted Hugo to win. I wanted him to succeed because he is such a strong willed, determined but kind boy.
At first, the movie seemed to move a bit slow to me, however by the end of the film, I'm glad it moved at the speed it did. It was a like watching a train slowly picking up speed and then hurling down a hill and taking you along for the ride, picking up more passengers and their luggage along the way. Most of the “mystery” appeared to be a bit predictable, yet there were twists and details that were completely unexpected.
There are many little stories going on at once along with the main mystery of the automatron. Each with their own interesting tid-bits. I learned some new words from the fancy vocabularies of some of the characters. I enjoyed the different characters and their relationship develop. Most of all I really loved the details in the scenes, the lighting, the colors, the focal points, it's really a beautiful movie.
We rented the 2 day on-Demand version of HUGO through Comcast, so we're watching it for the second time and the whole family is just as interested as they were yesterday watching it for the first time. I think this movie is appropriate for the entire family. Although it is a little long and slow for really young audiences, my 4 year old enjoyed parts of it, there's just enough action with nothing too scary that she was also happy to sit and watch with us twice.
HUGO products you can buy:
