Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo” is a children’s film for grown-ups — grown-up film buffs.
It’s a charming and gorgeous exercise in the few corners of the medium where the Oscar-winning filmmaker has next to no experience — children’s stories, comedy and 3-D.
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And even though it is too long and the master has yet to develop much of a comic touch, this adaptation of Brian Selznick’s “The Invention of Hugo Cabret” is a stunning exercise in 3-D and a delightful celebration of Scorsese’s lifelong love of the movies — something he, like Hugo, developed in childhood.
Orphan Hugo (Asa Butterfield) lives in the bowels of a Paris train station between the world wars. He hides out, carrying on the job that a drunken uncle left him with — servicing the huge clocks there. He gets by on stealing food and drink, hoping not to be noticed by the station inspector, Gustav (Sacha Baron Cohen).
Hugo is a tinkerer, something he picked up from his late father (Jude Law). His favorite project is an old clockwork automaton, a wind-up man he tries to fix with parts stolen from the toy shop run by a cranky old man played by the great Ben Kingsley. When the old man catches Hugo, he seizes the boy’s notebook, full of his father’s drawings and fixes for the automaton.
Hugo must work in the shop to win the notebook back, and even then, the mean old man may turn him in to the even meaner Gustav, who patrols the station with a Doberman.
Hugo must elude Gustav, win over Isabel (Chloe Moretz) and get back that notebook — his last tie to his dead father.
Scorsese uses this vintage Paris railway station set to stage marvelous 3-D chases, his camera following Hugo up ladders, down alleys, weaving through crowds. “Hugo” is the best looking 3-D movie since “Alice in Wonderland.”
The story is too slight to support this length. Still, movie buffs will be transfixed by scenes in the latter acts — movie-making as it was being invented. It’s where Scorsese’s heart truly is with this material.
PG. 2 hours, 10 minutes. At area theaters.
