Hugo (Martin Scorsese, 2011)

Nigh on forty years from Mean Streets finds Scorsese making a cute kids' film. Thankfully it stays the right side of saccharine, barring the cloying dimpled permagrin of Chloë Grace Moretz, whose brief seems to be to do the Famous Five while the main character of Hugo is more drawn from the Oliver Twist school. An orphan who lives inside a railway station clock, he is an engagingly unsentimentalised protagonist, purposefully striving to make the one item left by his father, a writing automaton, functional by any means necessary. The presence of Scorsese behind the scenes does then makes itself felt after all, as the historical figure of film pioneer Georges Méliès is brought in and with him the director's obvious adoration of cinema.
The setting of Paris in the '30s is ravishingly filmed, of course being rather safer terrain for twinkle-toed confection than, say, '70s Coventry, and a cast of British stalwarts provide security against schmaltz, even while the script persistently tries to veer off-course with false notes such as Sacha Baron Cohen's station policeman, who was presumably meant to bring humour to the proceedings, but is lumbered with such leaden dialogue that it's a losing battle. Nevertheless, there's plenty here to enjoy for children and adults alike.

6/10