Just saw Hugo. Movie wasn't bad, but ad campaign & poster is misleading. It made it seem like it would be a magical kids' animated film. Instead what we got was something that wouldn't be out of place on PBS at 3 in the morning.
Saw Hugo a week or so ago. Both my wife and I also expected it would be animated, but totally loved it regardless. Seemed as if it were out of another era, which was no doubt the point.
Wow, so both urth and radical thought it was animated? Based on... what? the poster? I'm really kinda baffled by that, but then I'm a film geek and I usually know about movies ahead of time. Which is why I liked it (esp the last 45 mins or so). Easily the best 3-D I've ever seen.
Mostly, yes, the two posters. I usually don't read too many reviews before watching movies because I don't want to know too much about the movie before watching it. Especially since the critics are usually hit-or-miss for me, unless the RT meter has something ridiculously low like 10%. (And even then, there could still be exceptions. I thought
Priest was a perfectly decent movie despite getting 17%...although I do see why it was panned.)
Poster I:
Besides being the
33rd worst movie poster of the year, that key is so gargantuan and so corny that there's no possible way that any film that features it
can't be animated.
Poster II:
The poor kid's hanging from a clock. No way would that happen in a real live non-PG13 or R rated movie (even though it apparently just did.) Kid even looks animated here too.
In posters I & II, "HUGO" is in written in a playful, unaligned font which also screams cartoon.
Other offenders were the first few seconds of the trailer (I didn't go past the beginning before watching the movie), which looked like an animated view of Paris, and the consensus on RottenTomatoes, which rates it a 94% and says: "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." The bold phrases being most misleading. Fantasy usually implies animation, or at least something so obviously fake like
Hook which this wasn't. Same with "kids' movies" -- and I wouldn't even call this a kid's movie -- more like a family movie starring kids.
Finally, who in their right mind would name someone other than an animated character
Hugo. (No offense if any of you have kids named Hugo.
)
I had the same reaction as TinkaCat about the melding of live action/animation for about a minute. I agree with everyone that 3D was well done. The angles when he was standing inside the clock really were impressive. It was what saved it for me, as I otherwise wouldn't see this type of movie on the big screen.
