Watched Dark City. Had been meaning to check it out for the longest time and finally got around doing so.
While it had flaws and is not any kind of greatest movie ever, I found it enjoyable. The characters, story and the world were interesting and the movie is at least worth the time it takes to watch it.
I've not been watching many movies recently due to watching two different TV series.
However, due to Juliane's parents owning a new 3D TV, we got a 3D Blu-Ray to test it out when we went over there yesterday. It turns out that the parents have a 3D TV, but their Blu-Ray player doesn't have the firmware update to play it. When they watched 3D movies, they downloaded them.
So we watched Hugo in 2D, not 3D at home. Or at least we tried. We got about 25 minutes in, and we hadn't smiled or laughed once. It was just boring! So we turned it off. I'd heard it was a really good movie, but it just wasn't for me.
Out of curiosity, what did you find boring about it? Not saying you're wrong to feel that way (different tastes and all); just would like to know. I personally was riveted throughout the film, especially by all the touches that the cinematography added to Hugo's character and the story -- and that even before it got into all the film history stuff, which is like catnip to me.
Out of curiosity, what did you find boring about it? Not saying you're wrong to feel that way (different tastes and all); just would like to know. I personally was riveted throughout the film, especially by all the touches that the cinematography added to Hugo's character and the story -- and that even before it got into all the film history stuff, which is like catnip to me.
It's hard to say what I found boring, because boring is a negative attribute. Boring means a lack of interesting or entertaining.
After 25 minutes I hadn't smiled once, laughed once, or found any of the interactions between any of the characters interesting. I had no idea the story was going to be about film history, because after 25 minutes, I still had no clue what the story of the movie was, nor that there was even going to be a story. I had no idea why the boy was afraid of the station guard, nor why he spent so much time running and hiding, nor why that was taking up so much time. The cinematography felt super heavy handed, to me, and just slowed everything down.
So we watched Hugo in 2D, not 3D at home. Or at least we tried. We got about 25 minutes in, and we hadn't smiled or laughed once. It was just boring! So we turned it off. I'd heard it was a really good movie, but it just wasn't for me.
We had the exact same problem. We watched almost exactly as much as you did, mutually agreed we weren't enjoying it, puzzled over why it was so highly recommended, and then turned it off.
After 25 minutes I hadn't smiled once, laughed once, or found any of the interactions between any of the characters interesting. I had no idea the story was going to be about film history, because after 25 minutes, I still had no clue what the story of the movie was, nor that there was even going to be a story. I had no idea why the boy was afraid of the station guard, nor why he spent so much time running and hiding, nor why that was taking up so much time. The cinematography felt super heavy handed, to me, and just slowed everything down.
I could not describe our feelings better than you did.
We paused the movie at about that point, and specifically tried to figure out what it was about. So far, it had been nothing more than a series of barely connected scenes.
You guys are 100% correct about Hugo. The whole beginning of the movie you think it's going to be about the kid trying to get the key and fix the automaton. The whole beginning of the movie focuses on the kid in a way you assume he's the main character. The movie is actually about the old guy who isn't even introduced until much later.
It would be like if you are watching Empire Strikes Back and then halfway through it turns out it's actually about Boba Fett and shifts the focus to his story almost entirely.
It would be like if you are watching Empire Strikes Back and then halfway through it turns out it's actually about Boba Fett and shifts the focus to his story almost entirely.
Sure, but it's quite different if it happens right in the middle of the movie as opposed to in a sequel.
Also, there are some stories where the main character will die, become lost, or leave, and that allows another character to naturally take over. What if the main character is still doing their thing, but the movie is no longer about their story but another character's story? That's Hugo.
Yeah, I know, I just thought you'd like that article for other reasons.
I didn't get far enough along in Hugo to meet anyone interesting or important. I guess he finds the heart shaped key in the toy shop, or the Gandhi's daughter has it, and the automaton writes something about how Ender's father died. If the movie isn't about Dr. Watson's death, then it isn't as good as the movie in my head.
Yeah, I know, I just thought you'd like that article for other reasons.
I didn't get far enough along in Hugo to meet anyone interesting or important. I guess he finds the heart shaped key in the toy shop, or the Gandhi's daughter has it, and the automaton writes something about how Ender's father died. If the movie isn't about Dr. Watson's death, then it isn't as good as the movie in my head.
The Hunger Games is on my "to read" list but very, very far down, and since common opinion is that the books slowly decline in quality, I was intrigued by the movie sequel getting better reviews than the first. Could this be the rare "watch it rather than read it" situation?
Had a down night last night, so I clicked it on Netflix and wasn't impressed. Regardless of whether the premise has been done before, it's something I still found interesting, but I think it was the acting of the adults that let me down. Woody Harrelson and then rest of the adults just seemed out of place. Also, the visual style of the capital and its people didn't do anything for me. It went right past Victorian avant garde and right into "trying too hard to seem futuristic." It felt like it was on the level of The Fifth Element, but without the silliness to justify it.
So it seems like visuals and acting soured the film for me. Guess I should have read it rather than watched!
The cinematography felt super heavy handed, to me, and just slowed everything down.
See, I don't know, I actually think the movie maybe wasn't clear enough in that respect. In theory, the subtlety is great: there is a lot of focus placed on Hugo always being on the outside looking in, watching these vignettes with other people through little holes and windows, like he's watching a bunch of silent short films. There's an additional bit that the 3D brings to this, too, in that it establishes a sense of the distance between Hugo and these vignettes, and between him and other characters as the film goes on. So much time is devoted to that sort of stuff because it establishes that Hugo has a passion for looking, which ties in to the love he expresses for movies later on and then to the spoilery part Scott mentioned above.
This sort of stuff, along with the general story structure to that point, also just establishes that Hugo doesn't feel like he fits anywhere (like a machine part that doesn't seem to fit -- thematically relevant), so it feels all the more satisfying when he does find a place for himself. Aside from the other stuff about "hey, old movies are awesome!", the whole movie is about dealing with feeling "broken" or out of place and finding a way to "fix" yourself by doing something you love, and that happens for all the major characters by the end. That's why the point of the movie isn't fixing the automaton -- the automaton is the symbolic proxy by which the characters and the audience get to the actual goal.
The clarity problem lies in the fact that there is nothing else that actually establishes Hugo's love of movies until he mentions liking the Douglas Fairbanks Robin Hood to Isabelle, and that's after they've already had several encounters, definitely beyond the point where you stopped. If there's no other way to indicate why lingering in those early parts in the beginning is important, then yeah, the transition to the parts of the film where those reasons become important is jarring and seemingly unjustified. That is definitely a big flaw with the film that I acknowledge despite loving the movie overall.
As for the stuff you didn't understand: I can't help you there. I had no trouble understanding what was going on (I thought it was made pretty obvious that getting caught by the guard would mean getting sent away to the orphanage), but if it didn't work for you, then fine enough, I can understand getting frustrated and stopping. I can't remember where the 25 minute mark was exactly, either. Had they not done the flashback of Hugo's backstory yet by that point?
See, I don't know, I actually think the movie maybe wasn't clear enough in that respect. ...
-snip-
As for the stuff you didn't understand: I can't help you there. I had no trouble understanding what was going on (I thought it was made pretty obvious that getting caught by the guard would mean getting sent away to the orphanage), but if it didn't work for you, then fine enough, I can understand getting frustrated and stopping. I can't remember where the 25 minute mark was exactly, either. Had they not done the flashback of Hugo's backstory yet by that point?
It's not there were things I didn't understand, or no issue big enough for me to stop watching the movie. It came down to the fact that no matter how unified the vision for the movie, how well it is shot, how great it will come together in the last act... no matter about all of that, if I've not been entertained for 25 minutes straight, your movie is failing. I had the same problem with Up, and while the first 10 minutes was amazing, the next 25 left me bored and annoyed, so I stopped watching. In the case of Hugo, I wasn't annoyed or frustrated, just bored. And I was bored by the first 25 minutes, so I didn't even consider watching any further.
Things I didn't understand:
1. Why is he stealing food? Because he can't afford food? Because he can afford food but is saving money to buy clockwork parts?
2. Why does he need to steal clockwork parts when he works as a clock technician. Doesn't he have tools to make the parts? Doesn't he have connections to order the parts?
3. When Gandhi takes his notebook and threatens to burn it, why doesn't he say "That belonged to my dead father, and it's the only thing I have of his, so please give it back"?
4. If he is afraid of the station guard, why doesn't he simply go somewhere else in the city to steal food and clockwork parts? Is there literally nothing outside the station? We know he goes outside to follow Gandhi home, so why not steal stuff along the way? He has an amazing hiding place in the station, so why risk that by working the turf outside his very front window?
I could go on. It's not worth it for a boring movie.
I guess so many movie people liked it because it was about movies. That's probably why Argo won the Best Picture Oscar, not because it was the best picture, but because it was about movie making (though I thought it was a very good movie).
2. He doesn't have the connections. No one knows he works on the clocks because
you find out in the backstory flashback that he was brought here by his uncle. They weren't supposed to live at the station, but the uncle found apartments hidden in the walls and so made use of them. Eventually the uncle just never comes back (later revealed to have gotten drunk and drowned in a river). Rather than give up his hidden living space and risk being sent to the orphanage, Hugo just continues to do his uncle's job behind the scenes to make it look like everything is going along as normal. Everyone else in the station just assumes the uncle is still doing his (largely invisible) job, because no one has bothered to check up on him.
You can argue whether this part of the plot is stupid or not, but it is a reason given at least.
3. Probably because if he admits he doesn't have a father, that implies he's an orphan, and that'll give the old man cause to call for the station inspector to take him away to the orphanage. Also probably because he just doesn't want strangers to know about his private life at that point (seen in his reluctance to let Isabelle see his home, and his general reclusiveness). Also, Hugo doesn't know this, but there would've been a good chance Gandhi wouldn't have believed him even if he had said that because
the notebook used to be Gandhi's. Why believe some kid's story about it being a family treasure when he knows the actual source of the notebook?
4. Not as sure on this one; it didn't really occur to me while I was watching, and thus didn't bother me. If it bothers you, fine, I'll give you that one. It doesn't really impact the larger story, at least, which is the important thing. Best I can figure is that there's nothing in the movie saying he doesn't go outside for stuff sometimes. He might just do more inside because he knows the area and the ins and outs better than he knows the outside ones, maybe.
Again, I won't begrudge you if you found it boring. Being boring is one of the worst crimes in entertainment cinema, and if the movie did that for you, by all means, you don't have to like it. However, I do think it's a bit rude to imply that because you found it boring, then everyone who did not find it boring must have felt that way because they were "biased" in some way. As I said before, I was riveted even before I realized that it was actually about filmmaking, because I loved the cinematography and I was genuinely curious to see where they were going with the story of the orphan kid, the grumpy old man, and the broken robot. If you found it boring, that's fine, different tastes/senses of pacing/whatever. The least you can do is grant that other people did not necessarily have the same experience, and not because they were "biased" or some other silly reason like that.
Heck, even if that bias does exist for some (and yeah, it probably does): so what? Does that mean those people should go home with their tails between their legs because they didn't like something the right way? That just sounds petty.
To be specific, the people I meant who liked it because it was about movies? Critics. And Oscar voters. I'm not tslkjgg about general movie goers, but industry people who promote it and give it awards. Reviewers have to watch the whole movie. Oscar voters have to watch a big chunk of a movie. Despite any reservations they had at the start, they at least got to the part with answers, and then it being about movies won them over.
Also those who watched it in 3d probably enjoyed the swoops camera shots and other cinematography way more than I did. Two establishing shots of Paris at the start? How about just one? Looooong sweepy swoopy crane shots? Do we have to see boring sad kid climb around the set so much?
In 3d these very boring and pointless parts would at least have one interesting element. 3d can go a long way in distracting people from just how bad a movie really is (see Prometheus).
5. The insides of clocks don't have parts that move so fast! Why the dozens and dozens of cogs if all sizes constantly rotating? It's in the best interest of a clock that the FASTEST cog spins at one revolution per minute, and all others spin SLOWER than that.
Related: why a massively long pendulum? Once a pendulum swings more than once per second, you're only losing accuracy for no benefit.
I know it's a kids movie, so looks will trump technical accuracy. But why was I thinking about clocks 25 minutes into a movie? Because by them there was still no story.
Frozen is pretty good. It's very similar to Tangled, but I think Tangled is slightly better. Frozen takes a good 20 minutes to get going, but it's really fun because the comic relief is fantastic, as is the animation, and they play a lot with traditional Disney themes.
I remember when I watched Hugo...I definitely like the second half much more because it unfolded the purpose and themes of the movie. The first half is pretty, but it is unfortunately dull and almost typically whimsical. I think Luke has a pretty solid argument over how it starts with one idea and takes too long to get it's point across. It's an animated movie for film nerds, which is why it's done so well critically when it isn't that particularly exciting.
The Hunger Games is on my "to read" list but very, very far down, and since common opinion is that the books slowly decline in quality, I was intrigued by the movie sequel getting better reviews than the first. Could this be the rare "watch it rather than read it" situation?
Had a down night last night, so I clicked it on Netflix and wasn't impressed. Regardless of whether the premise has been done before, it's something I still found interesting, but I think it was the acting of the adults that let me down. Woody Harrelson and then rest of the adults just seemed out of place. Also, the visual style of the capital and its people didn't do anything for me. It went right past Victorian avant garde and right into "trying too hard to seem futuristic." It felt like it was on the level of The Fifth Element, but without the silliness to justify it.
So it seems like visuals and acting soured the film for me. Guess I should have read it rather than watched!
As far as Books to Movies go, The Hunger Games left a lot of exposition out of the movie that could be found in the book. It is hard to give an opinion about how well a movie moves along if you know the background (I read the books first), but I feel that the second movie did better in following the book, Catching Fire, as well as the fact that you already have backgrounds for (most) of the characters.
I heard similar things about Ender's Game, like the fact that the movie moves too fast and has very little character development. I can agree, but I very much enjoyed watching it due to knowing exactly what was going on, since I had read the book twice in the six months prior to seeing the movie. That said, I think I am going to wait on reading Seventh Son until after seeing the movie so I can judge it the other way around. The last time I did that was for Eragon though, so I am a bit skeptical.
I was also put off by the fairly hamfisted acting in the first 25 minutes of Hugo. I couldn't figure out any characters' motivations. Then, when the hamfisted slapstick with the guard and the chase through the station occurred, I was further put off.
The final straw was when Emily paused it and basically said "Does this look like it's going anywhere?"
Now, I like a good slow burn. I love movies that have more atmosphere and mood than plot or dialogue. I salivate over allegory and striking cinematography. I was never for a second bored with, say, Oshii's The Sky Crawlers, and I dutifully followed the barest glow of plot through the first 24 episodes of Gasaraki to see it all come together, loving every second.
It wasn't that Hugo was boring. It was that it was forced. The atmosphere was painfully contrived, and reeked of effort. The scenes were more like set pieces than a flowing movie, yet each one was not itself one of those Boondock Saints masterpieces.
From what people had said, I expected a masterpiece in Hugo. What I got was something I didn't bother finishing. And I even finished the dreadful Gosford Park.
As far as Frozen goes, I remember seeing a bunch of negative Twitter buzz surrounding the movie, but now that it's out, everyone seems to love it. The criticism seemed to be more centered around the advertising and treatment of the source material. Are there legit reasons why the film itself is lacking, or is it actually good?
The Hunger Games is on my "to read" list but very, very far down, and since common opinion is that the books slowly decline in quality, I was intrigued by the movie sequel getting better reviews than the first. Could this be the rare "watch it rather than read it" situation?
Had a down night last night, so I clicked it on Netflix and wasn't impressed. Regardless of whether the premise has been done before, it's something I still found interesting, but I think it was the acting of the adults that let me down. Woody Harrelson and then rest of the adults just seemed out of place. Also, the visual style of the capital and its people didn't do anything for me. It went right past Victorian avant garde and right into "trying too hard to seem futuristic." It felt like it was on the level of The Fifth Element, but without the silliness to justify it.
So it seems like visuals and acting soured the film for me. Guess I should have read it rather than watched!
As far as Books to Movies go, The Hunger Games left a lot of exposition out of the movie that could be found in the book. It is hard to give an opinion about how well a movie moves along if you know the background (I read the books first), but I feel that the second movie did better in following the book, Catching Fire, as well as the fact that you already have backgrounds for (most) of the characters.
I heard similar things about Ender's Game, like the fact that the movie moves too fast and has very little character development. I can agree, but I very much enjoyed watching it due to knowing exactly what was going on, since I had read the book twice in the six months prior to seeing the movie. That said, I think I am going to wait on reading Seventh Son until after seeing the movie so I can judge it the other way around. The last time I did that was for Eragon though, so I am a bit skeptical.
You have good reason to be skeptical. The common logic is usually right: better to read a story before watching it. I thought I had a good reason to go the other way with Hunger Games, but was proven wrong. If I finish out the trilogy I will definitely read through first, then watch them.
As far as Frozen goes, I remember seeing a bunch of negative Twitter buzz surrounding the movie, but now that it's out, everyone seems to love it. The criticism seemed to be more centered around the advertising and treatment of the source material. Are there legit reasons why the film itself is lacking, or is it actually good?
Honestly, the film has a bad start with 20 minutes of really obvious scenes. There's four short songs in a row of characters singing exactly about how they feel and what they are doing. You can even tell how the set up with certain characters is going to go because a character will immediately enter the scene and you can tell who they are by looking at them. Around the time the conflict starts to happen, it gets good and it has a wonderfully strong ending.
Everyone was harsh on the advertising because it only focused on the comic relief of Olaf the Snowman and Sven the Reindeer. What's shocking is that Olaf is perhaps the best thing about the movie. He's funny, he's affable and naive without being dumb, he's got a great singing voice and an emotional anchor for the movie. (Voiced by Josh Gad of Book of Mormon Fame) It's hard not to compare Tangled to Frozen, because Kristof/Sven is so similar to Flynn/Maximus. (However, Kristof and Sven grew up together and are friends)
But I'll take a movie that starts weak and ends greatly. I think it's aimed for a younger audience because it feels so intentionally classic Disney at points, but it has really good payoff from many of the things set up. It's not like what Brave did. (Which isn't Disney, but it was the last Princess movie)
I know it's a kids movie, so looks will trump technical accuracy. But why was I thinking about clocks 25 minutes into a movie? Because by them there was still no story.
Yep, that's a good reason to toss the movie out if it's not grabbing you. That's the idea behind the best nitpicky takedowns of movies: if you feel compelled to examine things on that technical and nitpicky a level, chances are good that the film is not doing its job to distract you from those things with a compelling story or vision. The difference here just seems to be that our experience on whether it was compelling or not differed, and that seems to be a fair place to leave it at.
I was also put off by the fairly hamfisted acting in the first 25 minutes of Hugo. I couldn't figure out any characters' motivations. Then, when the hamfisted slapstick with the guard and the chase through the station occurred, I was further put off.
. . .
It wasn't that Hugo was boring. It was that it was forced. The atmosphere was painfully contrived, and reeked of effort. The scenes were more like set pieces than a flowing movie, yet each one was not itself one of those Boondock Saints masterpieces.
The over-the-top-ness, artificiality, and indulgence of the visuals and characters was more than likely very intentional. A more subdued look and tone would not have reflected the kind of unabashed whimsy and joy of the visual that Scorsese sees in the old Meliés movies. Meliés was all about spectacle and putting on a larger-than-life show, so going for anything less than that is kind of doing the man a disservice.
That said, if that kind of try-hard spectacle just doesn't agree with you, or it does and you just don't think the filmmakers executed it very well, then that's fair. I disagree with you completely, but that's fair.
Ever with my finger on the pulse of pop culture, both in general and in the scope of the podcast/forum, I watched Take the X Train last night. What the Secular Christ did I just watch, and why do I want to watch it again tonight?
Comments
While it had flaws and is not any kind of greatest movie ever, I found it enjoyable. The characters, story and the world were interesting and the movie is at least worth the time it takes to watch it.
Except Jared Leto is really awesome in it, too.
However, due to Juliane's parents owning a new 3D TV, we got a 3D Blu-Ray to test it out when we went over there yesterday. It turns out that the parents have a 3D TV, but their Blu-Ray player doesn't have the firmware update to play it. When they watched 3D movies, they downloaded them.
So we watched Hugo in 2D, not 3D at home. Or at least we tried. We got about 25 minutes in, and we hadn't smiled or laughed once. It was just boring! So we turned it off. I'd heard it was a really good movie, but it just wasn't for me.
After 25 minutes I hadn't smiled once, laughed once, or found any of the interactions between any of the characters interesting. I had no idea the story was going to be about film history, because after 25 minutes, I still had no clue what the story of the movie was, nor that there was even going to be a story. I had no idea why the boy was afraid of the station guard, nor why he spent so much time running and hiding, nor why that was taking up so much time. The cinematography felt super heavy handed, to me, and just slowed everything down.
I could not describe our feelings better than you did.
We paused the movie at about that point, and specifically tried to figure out what it was about. So far, it had been nothing more than a series of barely connected scenes.
It would be like if you are watching Empire Strikes Back and then halfway through it turns out it's actually about Boba Fett and shifts the focus to his story almost entirely.
The story shifts to Boba Fett? That was once an awesome idea for the third movie in the trilogy!
Also, there are some stories where the main character will die, become lost, or leave, and that allows another character to naturally take over. What if the main character is still doing their thing, but the movie is no longer about their story but another character's story? That's Hugo.
I didn't get far enough along in Hugo to meet anyone interesting or important. I guess he finds the heart shaped key in the toy shop, or the Gandhi's daughter has it, and the automaton writes something about how Ender's father died. If the movie isn't about Dr. Watson's death, then it isn't as good as the movie in my head.
Had a down night last night, so I clicked it on Netflix and wasn't impressed. Regardless of whether the premise has been done before, it's something I still found interesting, but I think it was the acting of the adults that let me down. Woody Harrelson and then rest of the adults just seemed out of place. Also, the visual style of the capital and its people didn't do anything for me. It went right past Victorian avant garde and right into "trying too hard to seem futuristic." It felt like it was on the level of The Fifth Element, but without the silliness to justify it.
So it seems like visuals and acting soured the film for me. Guess I should have read it rather than watched!
Things I didn't understand:
1. Why is he stealing food? Because he can't afford food? Because he can afford food but is saving money to buy clockwork parts?
2. Why does he need to steal clockwork parts when he works as a clock technician. Doesn't he have tools to make the parts? Doesn't he have connections to order the parts?
3. When Gandhi takes his notebook and threatens to burn it, why doesn't he say "That belonged to my dead father, and it's the only thing I have of his, so please give it back"?
4. If he is afraid of the station guard, why doesn't he simply go somewhere else in the city to steal food and clockwork parts? Is there literally nothing outside the station? We know he goes outside to follow Gandhi home, so why not steal stuff along the way? He has an amazing hiding place in the station, so why risk that by working the turf outside his very front window?
I could go on. It's not worth it for a boring movie.
I guess so many movie people liked it because it was about movies. That's probably why Argo won the Best Picture Oscar, not because it was the best picture, but because it was about movie making (though I thought it was a very good movie).
It was really good you guys!
It had a twist that took Disney a good 60 years to come out with.
2. He doesn't have the connections. No one knows he works on the clocks because
You can argue whether this part of the plot is stupid or not, but it is a reason given at least.
3. Probably because if he admits he doesn't have a father, that implies he's an orphan, and that'll give the old man cause to call for the station inspector to take him away to the orphanage. Also probably because he just doesn't want strangers to know about his private life at that point (seen in his reluctance to let Isabelle see his home, and his general reclusiveness). Also, Hugo doesn't know this, but there would've been a good chance Gandhi wouldn't have believed him even if he had said that because
4. Not as sure on this one; it didn't really occur to me while I was watching, and thus didn't bother me. If it bothers you, fine, I'll give you that one. It doesn't really impact the larger story, at least, which is the important thing. Best I can figure is that there's nothing in the movie saying he doesn't go outside for stuff sometimes. He might just do more inside because he knows the area and the ins and outs better than he knows the outside ones, maybe.
Again, I won't begrudge you if you found it boring. Being boring is one of the worst crimes in entertainment cinema, and if the movie did that for you, by all means, you don't have to like it. However, I do think it's a bit rude to imply that because you found it boring, then everyone who did not find it boring must have felt that way because they were "biased" in some way. As I said before, I was riveted even before I realized that it was actually about filmmaking, because I loved the cinematography and I was genuinely curious to see where they were going with the story of the orphan kid, the grumpy old man, and the broken robot. If you found it boring, that's fine, different tastes/senses of pacing/whatever. The least you can do is grant that other people did not necessarily have the same experience, and not because they were "biased" or some other silly reason like that.
Heck, even if that bias does exist for some (and yeah, it probably does): so what? Does that mean those people should go home with their tails between their legs because they didn't like something the right way? That just sounds petty.
Also those who watched it in 3d probably enjoyed the swoops camera shots and other cinematography way more than I did. Two establishing shots of Paris at the start? How about just one? Looooong sweepy swoopy crane shots? Do we have to see boring sad kid climb around the set so much?
In 3d these very boring and pointless parts would at least have one interesting element. 3d can go a long way in distracting people from just how bad a movie really is (see Prometheus).
5. The insides of clocks don't have parts that move so fast! Why the dozens and dozens of cogs if all sizes constantly rotating? It's in the best interest of a clock that the FASTEST cog spins at one revolution per minute, and all others spin SLOWER than that.
Related: why a massively long pendulum? Once a pendulum swings more than once per second, you're only losing accuracy for no benefit.
I know it's a kids movie, so looks will trump technical accuracy. But why was I thinking about clocks 25 minutes into a movie? Because by them there was still no story.
I remember when I watched Hugo...I definitely like the second half much more because it unfolded the purpose and themes of the movie. The first half is pretty, but it is unfortunately dull and almost typically whimsical. I think Luke has a pretty solid argument over how it starts with one idea and takes too long to get it's point across. It's an animated movie for film nerds, which is why it's done so well critically when it isn't that particularly exciting.
I heard similar things about Ender's Game, like the fact that the movie moves too fast and has very little character development. I can agree, but I very much enjoyed watching it due to knowing exactly what was going on, since I had read the book twice in the six months prior to seeing the movie. That said, I think I am going to wait on reading Seventh Son until after seeing the movie so I can judge it the other way around. The last time I did that was for Eragon though, so I am a bit skeptical.
The final straw was when Emily paused it and basically said "Does this look like it's going anywhere?"
Now, I like a good slow burn. I love movies that have more atmosphere and mood than plot or dialogue. I salivate over allegory and striking cinematography. I was never for a second bored with, say, Oshii's The Sky Crawlers, and I dutifully followed the barest glow of plot through the first 24 episodes of Gasaraki to see it all come together, loving every second.
It wasn't that Hugo was boring. It was that it was forced. The atmosphere was painfully contrived, and reeked of effort. The scenes were more like set pieces than a flowing movie, yet each one was not itself one of those Boondock Saints masterpieces.
From what people had said, I expected a masterpiece in Hugo. What I got was something I didn't bother finishing. And I even finished the dreadful Gosford Park.
Everyone was harsh on the advertising because it only focused on the comic relief of Olaf the Snowman and Sven the Reindeer. What's shocking is that Olaf is perhaps the best thing about the movie. He's funny, he's affable and naive without being dumb, he's got a great singing voice and an emotional anchor for the movie. (Voiced by Josh Gad of Book of Mormon Fame) It's hard not to compare Tangled to Frozen, because Kristof/Sven is so similar to Flynn/Maximus. (However, Kristof and Sven grew up together and are friends)
But I'll take a movie that starts weak and ends greatly. I think it's aimed for a younger audience because it feels so intentionally classic Disney at points, but it has really good payoff from many of the things set up. It's not like what Brave did. (Which isn't Disney, but it was the last Princess movie)
That said, if that kind of try-hard spectacle just doesn't agree with you, or it does and you just don't think the filmmakers executed it very well, then that's fair. I disagree with you completely, but that's fair.