Hugo Is A Must-see for Adults as well as Children

"Hugo" is the Martin Scorsese film that everyone seems to be talking about but few have actually seen.

That's too bad. It's an interesting, visually stunning movie that weaves together a story about movie making with mystery, tolerance and magic. Set in Paris in the 1930s, "Hugo" is based on Brian Selznick's best-selling novel, "The Invention of Hugo Cabret."

Scorsese had me with the movie's first image. The opening thrusts us into the world of machines, clocks and a Parisian train station. That's where Hugo (Asa Butterfield), an orphaned young boy abandoned by his alcoholic uncle, lives in the walls and winds the huge station clock that keeps things moving along.

His only companion in his bare quarters is an automaton, which Hugo's father (Jude Law) had brought home from the musuem in which he worked. We see in flashbacks the two repairing the broken treasure, and the father later dying in a fire that roars up the museum stairs. The uncle takes him to the train station, teaches him to wind the clock and disappears.

The boy has rebuilt the mechanical man--it can write--using parts he has stolen from a toy store in the train station. The store owner (Ben Kingsley) appears to be a curmudgeon bent on making Hugo's llife more miserable, as does the policeman (Sacha Baron Cohen) who patrols the train station. Both are more complex and compassionate than we initially believe.

It is well-known how much Scorsese loves the history and art of creating films, and how much he admires the movie pioneer Georges Méliès. Consider "Hugo" his valentine to the movies, and the making of movies, which amaze, entertain and, sometimes, uplift us.

You're in luck! Hugo is playing at Georgia Theatre Company's theatre behind Georgia Square Mall. You miss the 3-D version, but 2-D is still spectacular.