This is yet another film that I'd wanted to see when it was first released, and another one where I have read the source material. Hugo Cabret is a young boy left orphaned and living in a Paris train station, ostensibly with his uncle. His father is a clockmaker, and his uncle is responsible for setting all of the clocks in the station, and he teaches Hugo to do the job. Once his uncle disappears, this job is all that stands between Hugo and a trip to the orphanage. He keeps the clocks running and stays out of the sight of the Station Inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen, delightfully diabolical). He is caught attempting to steal from a toy booth owned by a cranky old man (Ben Kingsley). He is forced to turn over his notebook, filled with drawings of mechanical looking devices. The old man demands to know if Hugo made the drawings, but Hugo will not give away his secret. The old man threatens to burn the notebook and report Hugo to the Station Inspector. The boy flees and we learn his secret - he is trying to rebuild a mechanical man, abandoned in the museum where his father worked, and rescued by Hugo when a fire that claims his father's life destroys the museum. He is convinced that the mechanical man, when fixed, will contain a message to him from his father. He meets the old man's ward, Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz), who promises that she will prevent cranky old Papa Georges from burning Hugo's necklace. Together, the two of them uncover the secret of the mechanical man - a secret that is connected to Papa Georges himself.
It's another very faithful adaptation of a book - The Invention of Hugo Cabret, told in both words and beautiful pictures. It was fun to watch this book come to life on the screen, in vivid detail from director Martin Scorcese. We saw it in 3D which didn't enhance it much for me (but maybe I was just cranky because I had to wear the 3D glasses over my regular glasses which was a little bit awkward).
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