Twelve-year-old Hugo Cabret is hiding in the Gare Montparnasse railway station in 1931 Paris. He goes to the table where he has taken things. A heartless man, Georges Melies, forces him to give him his notebook with detailed drawings that he won’t say what they are. Georges then takes his notebook and threatens to call the guard, Daste, if Hugo refuses to leave. Scared, Hugo runs away.

Back at home, his widowed dad is working on a machine that writes with a pen. Unfortunately, a fire breaks out, and his father dies. He then has to go live with his alcoholic uncle, Claude.

Hugo goes back to Georges to get his notebook. But Georges gives him a cloth with what appears to be remains of it. Poor Hugo is completely devastated.

He finds Georges’s apartment and calls for attention. Georges’s goddaughter, Isabelle, comes out and gives him a hard time about getting the notebook back. But then she decides to help him. From that point, they become close friends.

They decide to go on adventures around Paris. One activity that they enjoy is watching a movie in a theater. Although they get kicked out of it, they dig into that passion even more.

Hugo shows Isabelle the machine that his dad made before he perished. But oddly, it writes Geroges’s name instead. 

The two kids go to Isabelle’s apartment to investigate Georges’s drawings. But Georges gets mad at them and bans Hugo from coming back.

Some time later, Hugo and Isabelle go to the library to discover that Georges was involved in filmmaking, despite how he and his wife wouldn’t allow Isabelle to watch any movies. The librarian, Rene Tabard, shares the history of film and everything that Georges has worked on. Since he is happy that Georges is still alive after disappearing during WWI, he wants to meet him.

He meets him and his wife, Jeanne, whom he’s also happy to see because she acted with Georges. He shows them the films. Georges learns to appreciate his accomplishments rather than dwell on his failures.

Hugo makes a quick run to the train station to get the machine–only to be stopped by Daste, who grabs him and locks him up to be sent to the local orphanage. Hugo manages to escape. But will he succeed at retrieving the machine?

Despite the slow opening with too much set-up, the movie became more interesting. The level of tension was neither too high nor too low. The amount of it balanced evenly, where some scenes only had positive moments and others had a lot of conflict.

One of the biggest strengths was characterization. I admired Hugo’s relationship with his dad, Rene, and especially Isabelle. Isabelle made his life more exciting. She’d even comfort him when he was upset.

I was sad to see Hugo’s father pass away since they had such a sweet relationship, despite how little screen time they had. But every story needs conflict. So, unfortunately, that may make it necessary to kill off characters the protagonists love.

I was surprised when Georges went from being Hugo’s enemy to practically welcoming him into his family. Although I found it satisfactory, I will admit that it felt too sudden and random. There were no hints to Georges quickly changing like that.

Another flaw is that the story was too hard to follow. I feel like there were two plots. One about the machine, and the other about movies. Of course, subplots are often needed, even when adapting books into films and cutting out a lot of material. But here, it felt a little too disconnected.

That being said, I did have a good time learning about the history of film, especially from a movie set in 1931. It took up a little bit of time, but it kept me engaged with the facts, colorful scenes and story concepts.

Overall, though, Hugo ended up being just okay. My biggest issues were the slow beginning and the difficulty of following the story. The strengths and weaknesses balanced evenly.

I give this movie 3 out of 5 stars.