Raiders Of The Lost Pixels

The Adventures Of Tintin:  Remember Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull?  Of course you do.  It’s easy to remember stuff you hate.*  Remember everything that was missing from it?  Sure, Indiana Jones was there, but… that’s really about it.  The action was watered-down, the “big bad” was an unclear, unfocused character, and the overall story objective, “let’s find an obligatory lost ancient city so we can drop off this alien skull,” was about as intriguing and interesting as watching bugs fuck.

I mention it because Crystal Skull was directed by the same guy who directed Tintin.  You may have heard of him.  He made a movie about a shark once.  Steven something.  Anyway, if you needed any real, concrete evidence that the latest Indiana Jones was, in fact, the fault of producer, revisionist historian, and neck-bulge enthusiast George Lucas and not that Steven guy, then look no further then Tintin.  It’s everything you wanted but didn’t get from Jones 4, and it is gloriously Lucas-free.  In fact, producing duties on Tintin went to some guy named Peter something.  You may have heard of him- he made a couple of flicks about little, hairy-footed dudes and some ring.  I think they were popular.

So, Tintin.  Yup, it’s one of those weird mo-cap animated extravaganzas, a ‘la The Polar Express, Beowulf, and A Christmas Carol, which people seem to generally dislike (of those three I‘ve only seen Beowulf, and I love it… but not enough to check out the other two).  Anyway, upon seeing the initial trailers for Tintin, my reaction was mostly apathetic.  “Here we go again,” and all that.  But I was told the flick was pretty good, so… I dove in.  And I’m so very glad I did.  Nonstop action, amazing visuals, characters I cared about, adventure, intrigue… a highly intelligent dog…

…hey, I never said it was completely grounded in reality…

To be fair, though, this film is mostly reality-based.  Spielberg seems to have thought up some of the most dazzling action sequences in years, but somehow managed to keep it from being too overly fantastic.  While watching I rarely said to myself “OK, THAT’s just not possible,” which is funny, considering the fact that since Tintin starred a bunch of pixels, it could have gone as far as it wanted in that direction.  And I think it was a conscious choice- these characters may look like (very real, yet) cartoony versions of people, but by keeping the physics of this world at a near-reality level we can get behind the danger these guys are putting themselves in, which makes them so much more easy to relate to.  When Tintin survives getting thrown into the air by hooking the suddenly-detached front wheel of the motorcycle he was driving onto a clothes line while chasing a bird for the parchment in his beak, it’s not only thrilling, it’s believable.  Certainly more so than a real person locking themselves in a refrigerator to survive a nuclear explosion…**

Oh, yeah, so…  Tintin (Billy Elliot Jamie Bell), a young journalist, buys a model ship at an outdoor European market.  He is immediately accosted by the evil Ivan Sakharine (Daniel Fucking Craig), who tries, unsuccessfully, to buy the ship from him at a higher price.  When Tintin gets the ship home, his dog, Snowy, breaks it open, revealing a hidden scroll.  Later, Tintin is abducted by Sakharine and imprisoned on a ship, where he meets its also-imprisoned (and eternally drunk) captain, Haddock (Andy Serkis).  They escape, and together race against Sakharine to find the remaining scrolls, which will lead them to a sunken ship, captained by Haddock’s ancestor, Sir Francis Haddock, that contains a fortune in treasure.  Indiana Jones-style action and globetrotting intrigue ensues.

The design of these characters is pretty cool, if not a little unsettling… but that’s expected as computer-generated characters get closer to reality.  Especially in a film like this where mostly everything looks so real, except for one specific stylistic design element: exaggerated noses.  If they had given Captain Haddock a less cartoony, bulbous nose, I may not have been able to tell he was fake in some shots.  His eyes might be the most real “fake” ones I’ve ever seen.  In the past, eyes have been one of the Achilles’ heels of these CGI extravaganzas.  Hell, one of the reasons I didn’t see The Polar Express was because of those creepy, dead eyes the kids had in the trailer.  The other issue is usually one of weight– characters usually just don’t seem to have any.  Avatar did an OK job of it in some shots, and Tintin seems to be continuing (if not perfecting) the trend.  And the reality of these characters is only enhanced by the top-notch voice talent.  Seriously, Andy Serkis should be in every mo-capped computer-generated movie that comes out from now on.  Gollum, Kong, Caesar, and now Haddock are more fully realized physical characters than half of the “real” people out there.

But I digress.

Tintin, for all its bombastic action and intrigue, isn’t perfect.  The first twenty minutes or so are an awkward mashup of exposition, character introduction, comic relief, and intrigue.  Not that those things are inappropriate for the start of a film (obviously), but as presented here they’re just, well, awkward.  Don’t really know how better to explain it.  Once we get on the ship and meet Haddock, though, it hits a stride.  Mostly.  The pacing between action sequences is also a little funky, at times.  There’s this herky-jerky section of the movie where Haddock starts remembering the story his grandfather told him of his ancestor, which is important to our protagonists because there’s information this memory holds that is key for their success.  Here we’re treated to one of the cooler bits of the movie- a ship duel between pirates & Sir Francis’ vessel, culminating in a swordfight between he and Sackharine’s ancestor, pirate captain Red Rackham.  It’s a thrilling sequence, on stormy seas with one ship getting tossed over the other while swashbuckling ensues underneath… but right in the middle it unceremoniously stops and we’re pulled back to reality to be reminded that Haddock has been having trouble recalling this story, due to his alcohol problem.  We’re soon brought back to the flashback (of sorts), but man I wish they had found a better way to get it done.  That sequence was truly great and deserved to live on its own as an unbroken entity.  What else?  Again, odd pacing issues during the quieter moments that slow the movie down to a crawl at times.  Thankfully, though, these don’t last very long.

Anyway, it’s really little editing choices like these that stick out to me as negatives.  The positives far outweigh them, though.  Solid voice talent, interesting story, thrilling visuals, all backed up by the best score John Williams has done in years, make The Adventures Of Tintin one of the 2011’s best action movies.  And from what I understand, we’re getting another Tintin movie, with Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson reversing their Director/Producer roles.  Count me in!

8 out of 10 Simon Pegg And Nick Frost “Appearances”

*For the record, I don’t hate Crystal Skull.  It’s very, very far from great… hell, it’s hardly even good… but it has its moments.

**Also for the record, the fridge thing doesn’t bother me so much.  Surviving a nuclear blast in a lead-lined icebox isn’t any more or less believable than Indy & his elderly dad crashing a biplane into solid ground and walking away without a scratch, or Indy, a kid, and a dumb blonde falling from the sky in an inflatable raft and living to tell the tale.

Oldman, Strong, Cumberbatch, Firth

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy:  “The performances were all fantastic, the story was great, and everything made sense in the end.  But if I go see a movie, I want to be entertained, and this monotonous, banal, uber-realistic style of filmmaking just didn’t do that for me.  I get enough real life in life.”

I wrote that on a friend’s Facebook thread.  I was called a curmudgeon (although, to be fair, that may have had more to do with my dislike of Hugo than my issues with TTSS).

Also, no- I didn’t dislike Tinker.  At all.  I was just… kinda bored.  It was an odd movie, at times confusing, mostly really, really slow, and although I was invested in the mystery at hand, by the 90-minute mark I couldn’t wait for things to just wrap up already so I could just have the resolution in my goddamn head and move on.  But I still had 37 minutes to go.

Let’s start with a few cons.  Just because.

The term “deliberately paced” is thrown around a lot when it comes to discussing film.  Occasionally I agree with it- a movie sometimes needs to move along at a certain clip to make its point.  Unforgiven is one of these films (and, holy frijoles, has it really been 20 FUCKING YEARS since that movie came out?!?!?).  It perfectly sets up the idea that these old men on one last mission simply don’t have the piss and vinegar of their youth anymore.  It helps us to identify with the one young character who just doesn’t get why things have to happen so slow.  Of course, the payoff makes it all worthwhile- when it all came down to it, Eastwood’s character dug down and found the last remnants of his violent, shady past, aimed it all at Hackman & Co., and pulled the trigger.

In TTSS we get a similar situation, but without that emotional gut-punch of a payoff.  Instead we’re given a quiet, understated, intellectual wrapping-up of a story that was already moving at a snail’s pace.  A story that seemed OK with presenting to you what life must really be like in the spy biz.  It’s a lot of paperwork, thinking, researching, discussing… you know, like a day job at a desk.  And it’s all very interesting, to be sure… if I was reading it in a book on a rainy day.  But in a darkened theater for two hours?  Not so much.

There was a bit of jumping around as well, time-wise.  A scene would end, then another would begin… and only after a few minutes in did I realize I was now sometime in the past.  Now, there are many ways a director can establish that a new scene is not here-and-now, and I understand the concept of not making such jumps a big, flashy exclamation point in order to dumb it down for general audiences, but director Tomas Alfredson just goes ahead and eschews said conventions completely, moving backward the same way as he moves forward.  “Good for him,” you might say, “he did his own thing here.”  And I’d agree with you in spirit… except here it just made things unnecessarily confusing.  If I need to spend time wrapping my brain around something as simple as what time period I’m in, then that’s story time lost.  Do I know what Alfredson could have done to not put a big, ugly stamp on these “flashbacks” (for lack of a better term)?  Nope.  I don’t make ‘em, I just watch ‘em.  But as-is, it got in the way.  For me.

OK, so the pros.

Well, it’s really one, big, collective “pro”- the performances.  Simply fantastic.  “Simply” being the operative word here.  These guys are all so very natural here. Gary Oldman, Mark Strong, John Hurt, Toby Jones, David Dencik, Ciarán Hinds, Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hardy… it’s like the talent gods just collectively barfed on the Tinker sets and didn’t clean it up.  Huh?  Whatever.  In my head that sentence totally ruled.  Anyway, yeah, natural.  The hyper-realism thing really works on the acting side of things.  Hell, I’d be surprised if Gary Oldman’s heart rate ever got over 60 bpm the whole time he was filming.  He was just so… British (oy.  How American of me)- an unflappable, wizened “old pro” who recognizes the positives of critical thinking over rash action.  I could say more, but he’s Gary Fucking Oldman, so no need.  The day that guy puts in a bad performance is the day I stop watching movies.  Mark Strong continues his trend of being the coolest thing about whatever movie he’s in.  He’s this imposing, dark figure, wearing a strong (heh) façade, covering a boiling pot of emotions, deep down inside.  I can totally see him playing a Craig-era Bond villain (like a Double-0 gone bad, if that hadn’t already been done by Sean Bean).  And the final, unspoken moments between he and Firth told an entire heartbreaking life story in about a minute’s time.  Jones, Dencik, Hinds, and Firth (what are they, a law firm?) are all appropriately understated- wearing cold, protected faces and allowing only carefully considered, metered dialogue, masterfully adding to the “whodunit” portion of the story.  Also, the guy with the coolest name in recent memory, Benedict Cumberbatch, was a total revelation in this movie.  You can feel the danger he has put himself and his career in by essentially spying on his own people, just behind his bright, calculating eyes.  Also, the shot where he sits, silently, as his lover, already packed and ready to leave their life together, asks him for a simple (and unanswered) explanation of what it is he did to deserve it, was an emotional gut-punch.  Brilliant.

So… not really much else to say here.  Sorry.  It’s pretty basic movie, and my feelings about it are equally as basic.  Incredible acting, slow-ass flick (and, just to be clear, the former outweighs the latter).  Worth a viewing, to be sure, and if you see it or have seen it, I’d really love to know how you felt about it, either in the comments below, or at my Facebook page, where I get most of my feedback (http://www.facebook.com/bricostello).  And if you want to label me a curmudgeon, I won’t stop you (nothin’ but love, Steve Hogan…)

7 out of 10 Actors That Look Like A Young Dennis Quaid, Except British

Swedish Finch

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo: Yup.  David Fincher has done it again.  It ain’t perfect, and, like The Social Network, I don’t think I’ll be yearning to revisit it often, if ever, but man did it keep me enthralled for two hours and forty minutes.

So, first thing’s first:  no, I didn’t read the book.  No, I don’t have any desire to read the book (so don’t bother).  I don’t consider myself a closed-minded person, but this book has totally reeked of flavor-of-the-week pop fiction to me ever since I saw 90% of the people on the subway burying their noses in it a few years back.  No thank you (geez.  Who brought the elitist prick?  Sorry).  Also, while I try pretty hard to judge things with my own eyes, I’m going to go ahead and take an authoritarian route here and trust my friends who told me the book was crap.

OK.  So.  The movie.

Fincher sure has cornered the market on subtle uncomfortability.  Is that a word?  Maybe it’s uncomfortableness.  Nah.  I like the former better.  Where was I?  Right.  Uncomfortable.  I was uncomfortable while watching this flick.  It’s a cold, bleak, heartless world that these people inhabit, and The Finch (and cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth) never let you escape it.  Sure, it’s Sweden- not the most tropical place in the world, but even the “warm” indoor scenes have this antiseptic sense of faux-neatness; a façade hiding the rotting id of society’s unspoken issues, manifesting here, quite heavily, as the struggle between men and women.  There’s a couple of scenes early on where our title character, Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), a ward of the state, makes her way to the office, then the home of her new guardian, Nils Bjurman (Yorick von Wageningen), who has been releasing funds to her in exchange for sexual favors (and “favors” is far too nice a word here).  These locations are of the “warm” variety that I’m talking about.  Sure, you’re in out of the cold, but comfortable?  No way.  In fact, really, the only indoor “comfort” we get is in the few scenes between Lisbeth and investigative reporter Mikael Blomkvist (James Bond Daniel Craig) in the apartment set up for him by the family of 40-years-missing girl Harriet Vanger (Moa Garpendal).

OK.  I think I’m getting to a point here where a brief synopsis might be necessary (you know, for the few of you who haven’t read the thing).  Mikael Blomkvist, recently (wrongly?) convicted libelist, is hired by Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to write a Vanger family history, and to use the gathered info to try and solve the 40-year-old (suspected) murder of his (missing) neice, Harriet.  Eventually, he is partnered up with the girl who ran the backround check on him for the family, Lisabeth Salander- piercing enthusiast, researcher & hacker extraordinaire.  With a big tattoo.  Of, like, a dragon.  Blomkvist interviews the Vanger family members on Hedeby Island, where all of the surviving members of the family, save one, live.  Everyone is a suspect.  Whodunit?

In addition to being a visually stunning piece, we’re treated with some fantastic performances.  (my new hot girlfriend)Rooney Mara puts in a nuanced performance that rivals any I’ve seen this year.  Visually she’s “in-your-face”- jet black Mohawk (at first.  It changes later on), rings & studs, no eyebrows, but she imbues this role with a deep wisdom, subtly layering her persona from tough exterior through levels of observant intellect and distrust in mankind, to wounded child, buried deep down.  Daniel Craig once again uses his stoic, grizzled good looks and cautious quick wit to elicit a kind of inevitable empathy (in this viewer, anyway).  He’s just a likable guy.  The others all fare just as well- Christopher Plummer does a masterful job setting up this unspoken gray area that is his family.  His initial scene with Blomkvist lets you know, right away, that things are going to be tough (and possibly dangerous) for him in the weeks to come.  (alas, poor)Yorick von Wageningen is such a scumbag- a sexual predator with a gleam in his eye, frightening to behold.  Stellan Skarsgård (Martin Vanger) is once again the guy you want so badly to like… but there’s just something off.  Really, though, everybody brings their best “almost perfect” poker face to the proceedings, further enhancing this already uncomfortable world.

Some more random great things:  the scene where Bjurman “gets his,” Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross’ soundtrack, that Bond-meets-Dalí opening credit sequence, the unnoticeable runtime (it sure didn’t feel like 2:40), Rooney Mara’s below-the-neck piercing…

Now, it wasn’t perfect.  The first 40 minutes or so deal with Lisbeth & Blomkvist’s stories separately, and while both have very interesting goings-on, the cutting between the two tends to be a little harsh, and also had the unfortunate effect of heavily diluting my perception of the passage of time.  The scenes were all necessary, to be sure, and I think the fact that I was so heavily invested in both made it harder to adjust when it jumped from one to another.  Once the two leads came together, though, and the story got moving on only one path it got better, for the most part… although I think it ended up being just a tad too Blomkvist-centric. It didn’t leave Lisbeth in the dust, or anything, but her pre-Blomkvist story was far more interesting an extended introduction than her new, almost “sidekick” status would lead you to believe.  Another thing- yes, it was really tough keeping track of who was who in the Vanger family.  Now, I know this was partially on-purpose- we’re not supposed to get a completely clear-cut view.  This way we’re not one step ahead of our male protagonist.  But he seemed to always be one-and-a-half steps ahead of us, and not because he had more information than we did.  Speaking of Mr. Craig… again, a great performance, but there’s a nagging tickle at the back of my brain questioning his casting (please don’t throw tomatoes at me.  I already said he was awesome).  I got the feel, through dialogue and a couple of specific instances, that he was supposed to be more of a “regular guy” than he came across as.  Example: there was one scene where he gets winded walking up a hill and complains that he’s a bit out of shape.  But we see him, many times, either shirtless or in a form-fitting top, and we know that’s not the case at all.  Also, he’s Daniel Fucking Craig.  He’d have to put on at least 50 pounds before anyone would truly believe he’s “out of shape” or, really, anything less than suave.  Some suspension of disbelief is required.  What else… well, there’s the product placement- it got a little too obvious once or twice (Coke!  Apple!  Purell!)… but from what I understand, it was like that in the novel.  Or, the translation of the novel, anyway (and I’ll stop now before I spend 5 overly paranoid paragraphs on my views of the possible insidious nature of said product placement in said posthumous translation…).  Finally, the ending.  Or, rather, the coda.  Once the main story is done, we spend 10 minutes or so on Lisbeth clearing Blomkvist’s name by going out on a limb for him: globetrotting and smearing the man who accused him of libel at the top of the movie.  This might have gone over better if the story dealt with it more in the first act than it did, and if it hadn’t set Blomkvist up as more of a central character than Lisbeth once their narratives converged.  As it stood, it came across as more of an extended afterthought than a wrap-up.  Now, it’s interesting stuff, and I suppose it helps set up a sequel (or two… there are three of these books, right?), but it was the only time the movie really dragged.  Ultimately, though, it was worth it for that final, sad shot of Rooney Mara taking off on her motorcycle, alone.

Anyway, these are mostly nitpicks.  Maybe I will give it another go in a few months and see if they still bug me.  Maybe.

So, Dragon Tattoo is still out.  Go see it.  It’s a disturbing, uncomfortable work of art by one of the cooler directors out there, and definitely should be seen on a big screen.

8 out of 10 Pressed Flowers

It’s Simply Fun, My Dear Watson

Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows: Did you like the first Sherlock Holmes movie?  Then you’ll like this one.

Holmes (the first) was one of those movies that really didn’t click with me on my first viewing.  I just didn’t get it.  Something about the style of the thing that just didn’t sit well with me, and by the end I had kinda checked out.  But it gnawed at the back of my brain for a few months, so I gave it another day in court and really, really dug it.  Complete turnaround.  And I think my initial dislike had everything to do with the mashing together of my preconceived Sherlock notions with Guy Ritchie’s ADD-style of filmmaking.  Of course, my preconceived notions were without any merit, whatsoever, having never read a single word written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle… so my second viewing ended up being purer than the first, since Ritchie’s visual stylings had already pretty much ended up blank-slating said notions.

Huh?

Cliff’s Notes version:  I didn’t like it, then I did.

So, when I sat down to viddy A Game Of Shadows (which shall be henceforth known as AGOS), I was already on board with the whole idiom.  And I dug it, fully.  It’s blockbuster entertainment, through and through.  Yes, it holds your hand a little, yes, it takes some liberties with the laws of physics, yes, it’s one of those obvious period dramas aimed at a possible costume/editing/sound design/whateverothertechnicalcategory Oscar nom, and yes, it wraps itself up in a nice, tidy bow, making sure to not leave any audience member behind (read: dumbed down a little), but damn if I didn’t get on that ride and enjoy the hell out of myself.

AGOS walks the style-vs.-substance line pretty well.  For every well-written moment of dialogue between Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Watson (Jude Law), or Moriarty (Jared Harris), or Simza (Nooooomi Rapace), there’s an obvious, video-gamey Quick Time Event editing extravaganza scene where Holmes uses his ability to instantly forsee the best outcome to his peril and git ‘r done, to balance it out.  I imagine these herky jerky scenes are the ones that people who disliked this movie point out as part of the problem (well, that and any deviations from the source material, of which I’m sure there are plenty), but for me they’re simply fun, fun, fun.  And Ritchie gives us just enough of them.  Seriously, even one more would have been too much.

The performances are all top-notch, and it’s one of those flicks where you get the sense the actors were all just having a total blast, cracking up between takes, messing with each other… but I guess I get that sense from Downey no matter what movie he’s in.  Well, except maybe Less Than Zero.  That one wasn’t really a ton of fun.  Anyway, yeah, he strikes me as a quick wit and a goofball, and if that’s the case, then art is certainly imitating life in AGOS.

And as mentioned above, I dug the whole period-piece aspect of it.  Especially since Ritchie’s style never panders to it.  Sure, we get the obligatory establishing shot of a London skyline, complete with dreary fog and gothic architecture, but it never lingers.  That’s not to say it’s one of those Michael Bay “every shot must be a tracking shot that doesn’t last for more than 3 seconds” movies, either.  No, AGOS does a pretty good job with its pacing- it takes its time getting you to a peak, then rushes you down the other side as is needed, like a good rollercoaster should.

Is it pop cinema?  Yeah, totally.  Is that a bad thing?  Not always.  Not as often as the film snobs would have you believe.  Certainly not in this case.  I don’t think something has to break new ground or deliberately eschew rudimentary storytelling techniques to be great… although, again, AGOS does manage to straddle both worlds.  It’s interesting to me to see the guy who made Snatch do big-budget studio stuff like this, because, unlike some other filmmakers who have been thrust into the same situation in the past (*coughcough*John Woo*cough*) he seems to be able to stay true to his style (without falling victim to it), even though he’s essentially had some control taken away from him (an often unfortunate side effect to signing on with the big boys).  Now, I’m not saying Guy Ritchie is the new Alfred Hitchcock, or anything.  I don’t think he was or ever will be brilliant (let’s face it- the guy did marry that dried up old semi-talent with the fake accent a few years back.  How brill could he be?)… I mean, yeah, having RDJ dressed up as a woman wasn’t nearly as edgy and hilarious as I think he thought it was (more like slightly funny, IMHOpinion), but, again, pop cinema, y’all.  You’ll never get me to vehemently defend his art, but I will reiterate that the guy makes fun, interesting flicks, with a just a pinch of braininess, that can be enjoyed on a more visceral level than something like, say, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (review forthcoming!  After the Dragon Tattoo one!).

So, git on out there and see Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows.  Doesn’t really matter if you’ve seen the first one- you know who Holmes & Watson are, and that’s enough.

8 out of 10 Speed-Ramped Punches In The Face

12 Characters In Search Of A Narrative

Hugo: I think Hugo was a good movie.  Pretty sure it was.  Hard to tell.  I mean, I didn’t really like it, but I’m fairly sure it was a good movie anyway.  Maybe.

I think it has a lot to do with focus.  What was this movie about?  Or, more importantly, WHO was this movie about?  I mean character-wise.  Was it about Hugo (Asa Butterfield), the urchin title character who, since the sudden death of his father (Jude Law), lives in the walls of the train station and keeps the clocks running for his completely absent drunk uncle Claude (Ray Winstone), or was it about real-life illusionist and pioneer filmmaker Georges Méliès (Ben Kingsley), who has been reduced to running a toy shop in a quiet wing of said station?  Is it maybe about the ensemble (Sacha Baron Cohen as “Station Inspector” and his love interest, “Lisette” (Emily Mortimer), Méliès’ family- he, goddaughter, “Isabelle” (Chloë Moretz), and ex-leading lady wife, “Mama Jeanne” (Helen McCrory), would-be elderly lovers “Madame Emilie” & “Monsieur Frick” (Frances de la Tour & Richard Griffiths), plus some scattered, plot-interwoven characters like film historian “Rene Tabard” (Michael Stuhlbarg) and Librarian “Monsieur Labisse” (Christopher Lee)), as the pre-title card sequence would have you believe?  Could I write a more confusing and overlong parenthetical?

Seriously, though, this was the issue.  I mentioned the pre-title sequence thing because it set up this very clear world, in the confines of this train station, that dealt with all of these people so very well.  It was intriguing, well edited, excitingly paced, visually enchanting, gave us a very clear picture of most of the aforementioned characters and yeah, set them all up as equally important people to watch over the next two hours.

And then the next two hours happened.

I guess I was expecting a meticulously interwoven plot that introduced new mysteries right on the heels of solutions to others, culminating in a satisfying, Rube Goldberg-ian  mousetrap of a climax involving all of these interesting people, no matter how large or small their part.  And I don’t think I was wrong to expect that, given what I saw in the prologue.  What I got, though, was an overlong, occasionally sloppy, and at times uncomfortably ingratiating reminiscence on the history of filmmaking.  Starring Brits with British accents as French people in France (that really didn’t bother me so much, but enough for me to be a dick about it one time here.  Fait accompli!).

So, lets talk about those things a little (minus the Brit/Frenchy thing, that I’m only going to be a dick about that one time).

Overlong:  It’s not about runtime, it’s about pacing.  If Peter Jackson can make three 4-hour movies about elves and goblins and magic that don’t awkwardly jump around and/or drag on (the (debatable) ending(s) of the 3rd one notwithstanding), then Martin Scorsese should be able to do it with a movie about a boy’s quest for closure and a retired filmmaker’s reawakening in 126 minutes.

Occasionally sloppy:  (long) Example:  Hugo has been working on this automaton that his dad found at the museum where he worked, pre-fiery death, through the use of a small notebook that had its technical plans written into it.  The two most important things this notebook states is that the machine needs intricate clock/watch-type parts to connect everything and a specific heart-shaped key to actually wind it and get it moving.  Hugo’s been stealing the cogs & gears needed to get it up and running from Méliès’ (JEEZUS, that’s a lot of accent marks.  Effin’ French people…) toy kiosk.  Méliès catches Hugo in the act and takes both the notebook & the cogs he has on him.  It is then made very, very, very clear that Hugo needs this notebook in order to finish the automaton and get it running.  He continues to hound Méliès about it, even going so far as to follow him home and wait outside his door in the freezing cold.  Méliès stubbornly refuses to give it back and even goes so far as to trick Hugo into believing he burned it.  So Hugo’s got a half-built automaton.  But then he sees the aforementioned key he needs around new friend Isabelle’s neck, takes her to the automaton, cranks it up, and, viola!, it works!  Wait, WHAT? Didn’t we just spend 20 slightly repetitive minutes on Hugo’s quest to reclaim a tattered old notebook so he could finish rebuilding this stupid thing?  Was it a magic key, or something?

Something else kinda sloppy?  Many of the characters mentioned above (most notably Lisette, Emilie, and Frick (oh my!)) did get some form of closure, but they became such afterthoughts following their introductions that I wonder if it would have been better not to include them at all.  They certainly didn’t have much to do with either of the storylines going on.  They did manage to be more interesting than said storylines, though, so kudos to Mortimer, de la Tour, and Griffiths (oh my!), I guess.

Uncomfortably ingratiating reminiscence: OK.  Please keep in mind that this is just, like, my opinion, man.  One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and all that.  I say this because I think this pseudo-on-screen-film-school-lesson is what’s at the heart of why the people who loved this movie loved it and why I found it mostly boring.  I’m not a film history nerd.  I appreciate the history of film, and I understand the importance of restoring and/or preserving old film.  I get that there were thousands of films made that no one can ever see again due to the ravages of time.  I get that there were visionary filmmakers predating what most people think of as the earliest examples of film.  But I didn’t go to see Hugo for a history lesson.  I went to be entertained.  And at the very core of what it takes to entertain me is a narrative that sticks to its guns.  Even this year’s most fragmented and non-linear film, Tree Of Life, stayed true to its emotional, existential through-line.  To be clear- I’m not saying Hugo took a fragmented, non-linear path to tell a story.  At all.  But what it did do was tell the first half of one story, then the second half of a different one.  Hell, by the mid-point of the flick it stopped being about the title character completely and became about Georges Méliès.  Which is fine, if we were led to believe the thing was about him all along.

OK.  Now I’m just talking in circles.  What I ‘m trying (unsuccessfully?) to say here is I dug Hugo’s story, but it ended abruptly and unceremoniously somewhere in the middle and he became an afterthought; a protagonist with clipped wings who got reduced to a mere plot device for this other story that was apparently more important.

And, yeah, for me it got a little uncomfortably preachy at times.  Like a love letter to the birth of cinematic art that, if we as a society don’t care enough about, will be overwhelmed by the decaying sands of time.  Seriously, at times I think I was being subjected to a $15 Martin Scorsese guilt trip.  A visually stunning guilt trip, to be sure, but a guilt trip nonetheless.  Also, I’m trying really, really hard not to use the word, “masturbatory” in this review, and so far, so good.  Oh.  Wait.  Too late.  Yeah.  There were times when this movie did so much winking at its own artistic merit that I can perfectly visualize the snobby film school students that Scorsese must have known would see it discussing its cinematography and editing and use of soft focus and atmosphere, all the while overusing the word, “brilliant,” while sipping their half-caff lattes in their wool scarves & winter hats with pompoms, even though they’re indoors…

…OK.  Now I’m just being cruel.  I will cease, forthwith…

…oh, except to say that, unlike literally everyone else on screen, Chloë Moretz was almost aggressively bad in this movie.

There.  Done.

So, I hope I’ve been clear here (and I know I haven’t because after rereading this review I realize I totally  bagged on this flick as if it’s awful, which it ain’t):  Hugo is simply a good movie that I didn’t like.  It’s hard for me to say Martin Scorsese has stepped up to the plate with bases loaded and only managed a walk, but there it is.  It ain’t the first time, and it probably won’t be the last.  That’s just the way it goes.  There are no guarantees that the most brilliant of filmmakers won’t release a lukewarm chunk of cinema (I mean, the Coens did make Intolerable Cruelty, after all…).  And let’s face it- he’s earned the right to not knock it out of the park every time.  I mean, he’s Martin Fucking Scorsese, for chrissakes.

One final thought:  3-D.  I’ve pretty much stopped discussing it in these reviews, since the powers-that-be seem to have refined it to the point of it being almost completely unnoticeable.  For an extra five bucks.  But there are exceptions, and Hugo was supposed to be one of them.  And it was… for a bit.  That opening shot where the camera glides through Paris and makes its way to a “5”-shaped hole in a clock where Hugo peers out at the world he is no longer a part of was the most visually stunning 3-D moment I’ve seen since Avatar.  And it continued to impress me for a while… until it devolved into self-awareness, then eventually into an afterthought.  Ironically, it was right around the time the idea of “embracing new ways to make film” was being discussed on screen that I noticed I wasn’t noticing it anymore.

Hugo’s been out for awhile.  If you haven’t seen it yet, you’ll miss nothing by waiting for a 2-D DVD version…  that will probably be jam-packed with a ton of boring extras about film history, adapting the book for screen, creating this visual world, blah, blah, blah…

6 out of 10 British Accents In France (DICK!)