Hugo

Hugo is a 2011 historical adventure drama film directed and produced by Martin Scorsese and adapted for the screen by John Logan. Based on Brian Selznick's book The Invention of Hugo Cabret, it tells the story of a boy who lives alone in the Gare Montparnasse railway station in Paris in the 1930s.

Summary
In Paris in 1931, an orphan named Hugo Cabret who lives in the walls of a train station is wrapped up in a mystery involving his late father and an automaton.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) A very brilliant grasp at the source material and captures the adventurous and creative spark that Brian Selznick's novel (The Invention of Hugo Cabret) had.
 * 2) Amazingly done character and story development with a very original plotline.
 * 3) Many unforgettable, well-executed moments, such as when the station inspector chases Hugo around the train station and gets stopped by several obstacles on his way.
 * 4) Wonderful cinematography and great camera workings.
 * 5) Each and everyone of the actors have really out done themselves with their performances in this film, especially from Asa Butterfield and Chloe Grace Moretz.
 * 6) Hugo's backstory of his father dying in an accident is very heartbreaking.
 * 7) Hugo and Isabelle share very heartwarming chemistry with each other.
 * 8) The station inspector, Guastave Daste, is an entertaining bad guy and has a nice reformation at the end of the film.
 * 9) Likable and interesting characters, mainly the intelligent, adventurous protagonist, Hugo Cabret.
 * 10) A well-done early 20th century setting/environment for the film.
 * 11) It contains several references to and actual footage from 1900s movies, like The Great Train Robbery and Le Voyage dans la Lune, which will delight silent movie buffs.
 * 12) It feels like a love letter to cinema.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) George Meliés was a jerk to Hugo at the beginning, as he took away Hugo's book to fix the automaton and burned it to ashes, thankfully though, it was just a magic trick. Despite this, we never get to see what happened to the automaton fixing book, however this can be understandable since Hugo didn't want to let go of one of his machines.
 * 2) As mentioned on BQ #1, we never get to see what happened to Hugo's automaton fixing book.
 * 3) Some scenes can be dark and/or scary for a family-friendly film, such as Hugo's nightmare, his backstory where his father died due to a fire, the scene where Hugo almost gets killed by a train, and the scene where Hugo hangs from the clock in order to escape the station inspector to not to go to the orphanage.

Reception
The film currently holds a 94% "Certified Fresh" rating on aggregate review site Rotten Tomatoes based on 213 reviews, with an average score of 8.3/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Hugo is an extravagant, elegant fantasy with an innocence lacking in many modern kids' movies, and one that emanates an unabashed love for the magic of cinema." Metacritic gave the film an average score of 83 out of 100, based on 41 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".