Hugo

There's a certain feeling I get from books I read when I was a child (books like The Phantom Tollbooth, The Diamond In The Window, and those books by Edward Eager), a feeling that can only be described as magical.
Hugo feels like that.
I saw previews for it and thought it looked pretty good, with all the clockworks and all. But the previews don't do a good job of explaining what the movie's about, not even a little. 'Cause the previews make it look like Hugo is a movie about a kid named Hugo who lives in a train station, gets chased by Sacha Baron Cohen and tries to figure out how to fix a mechanical man he got from his father.
Those are all elements of the story, certainly, but that's not what the movie's about. I don't entirely know how to explain what the movie's actually about.
It's about people, I suppose. But that makes it sound boring.
It's about the movies, I suppose, but that makes it sound modern.
It's about finding your purpose, I suppose, but that makes it sound preachy.
I was blown away by this movie. I cried all the way through it, but in a good way. It's a movie that makes me happy, that makes me want to live in that world with those people.
I don't know who this Asa Butterfield kid is, but he's perfect as Hugo, and I wish him the best in his life. He's a talented actor and I hope he doesn't let that go to his head or mess him up in any way.
In fact, everybody in the movie is perfectly cast. I rolled my eyes at the idea of Sacha Baron Cohen as the station inspector simply because I tend to roll my eyes at the idea of Sacha Baron Cohen. That's unfair of me; just because I don't like Da Ali G Show doesn't mean the man's not talented. He's quite good in this movie.
As is Ben Kingsley, who is sometimes infuriating, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes both at once. Even Jude Law was adorable, and I usually find him skeevy.
If I have a complaint about Hugo, it's that I felt like the scenes that the previews tended to focus on (Hugo being chased by the station inspector) ground the film to a halt. I suppose they were necessary, but they almost felt like they belonged in a different movie; they didn't give the audience anything about the characters to latch on to and they didn't have that sense of magic that the rest of the movie has; they were just there, getting in the way.
Other than that, though, Hugo is pretty much perfect. And don't let anybody call it a "children's" or even a "family" movie. Those terms always feel derogatory. Hugo is an all-ages movie; it has no age-specific target audience, it's simply something that anybody can enjoy.

End of line.
-Sally