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Hugo | 2011 | PG | - 2.3.1

In 1930s Paris a young orphan (Asa Butterfield) that lives inside the walls of a train station becomes wrapped up in the mystery of an automaton, a metal interactive puppet, left behind by his dead father (Jude Law), and an unhappy older man, who has a booth in his train station. Also with Chloe Grace Moretz, Christopher Lee, Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen and Emily Mortimer. Directed by Martin Scorsese. [2:07]

SEX/NUDITY 2 - A girl lightly kisses a boy on the cheek. We see movie footage of a man and a woman kissing. A man kisses the hands of a woman.
 On multiple occasions we see a boy and a girl hold hands. A man and a woman walk arm in arm. A woman wraps her arm around a man's arm. A man lifts a woman and spins around as they dance. A man and a woman flirt on multiple occasions and they also have dogs that seem to "flirt" by licking and kissing one another.
 A man asks another man if he believes the child his wife is carrying is his, and he asks if he has had relations with his wife in the past year; the man says he cannot remember. We overhear one side of a phone conversation between two men; the portion we hear implies that a man believes his wife is having an affair and that she is pregnant. We overhear a man's side of a phone conversation with another man; we deduce that the man's wife had run away and had an affair but had returned and would soon have a baby.
 We briefly see the bare chests of two men in film footage. Several women are seen wearing one-piece bathing suits as costumes in film footage. We see a shirtless man (his bare chest is visible) in the background of a scene. A man wearing long john style underwear is seen sitting in a bathtub with a dog. A nude statue (the bare male chest is visible) is seen.

VIOLENCE/GORE 3 - We see the waterlogged body of a man on the side of a river; we learn that a man's body had been discovered at the bottom of a river and that the police believe it had been in the river for an extremely long time.
 A man grabs a boy's arm violently, the small automaton the boy is carrying is thrown through the air and crashes onto train tracks, the boy runs after it and scoops it up as a train is barreling down the tracks; we hear the whistle blow and see sparks fly from the wheels of the train as the conductor tries to stop and a man lifts him to safety (the boy collapses on the train platform, unharmed).
 A man's leg brace becomes caught in the door of a train, the train slowly begins to pull away, and the man is yanked to the ground and dragged as he shouts for the train to stop (we later see the man unharmed).
 As we see a man walk toward a doorway and a wall of flames shoots through the door; it is implied that the man died in the fire.
 A boy climbs out of a multiple-story clock tower and hangs onto the hands of the massive clock in order to escape a man and a dog that are searching for him; the boy lurches downward as the minute hand lowers, he steadies himself and soon returns inside the clock tower unharmed. A boy and a girl shout at each other in a crowded train station, the boy runs away and the girl chases him, the girl trips and imagines herself being trampled by a swarm of people (we see feet smashing down on the image of her face), she screams and the boy returns and helps her up (she is unharmed).
 A boy has a vivid dream: we see the boy standing on a train track in a busy train station, a train is barreling toward him, we hear the conductor shout that a boy is on the track and we see sparks fly from the wheels and track as the conductor desperately tries to stop the train; the boy is caught in front of the fast-moving train and appears to lie down on the tracks as the train crashes through the wall at the end of the track, continues to tear through the station (we see people diving to get out of the way just in time) and finally crashes through a second-story window of the train station. A boy has a very vivid dream: he imagines himself awakening from a traumatic dream where he had possibly been run over by a train, he looks down and his chest has turned into the cagey metal workings and gears of an automaton, his legs are made out of steel and we see cogs and wheels encircle and trap him; the boy wakes up moments later, drenched in sweat.
 A man and his guard dog surround a boy, the boy tries to run and the man uses a noose on a stick to grab the boy's leg; the man shoves the boy into a cell and we overhear him calling an orphanage and reporting the boy as an orphan and a thief. A man grabs a boy's jacket and drags him away, he shouts at the boy and throws him into a cell; the boy shouts at the man and then picks the lock of the cell and escapes, unharmed.
 A man shouts at a boy, grabs his arm, roughly shoves him away, and then grabs a notepad from the boy and slams it against a table; he then shouts so loudly that echoes of his voice are heard throughout a train station. After a boy picks a lock so he and a girl can get into a theater, a large man approaches them, shouts, grabs the boy's shoulder and tosses them out of the theater.
 As a boy being chased by a dog and a man races through a train station, he leaps onto a table, the table tips and an older woman at the table gasps; the man crashes into another man and continues running, side-checking two women and a man as he chases the boy, who escapes. On multiple occasions we see a dog barking angrily and racing through a crowded train station with a man following while they chase a boy; on one occasion the man follows the dog and accidentally runs into a woman, spinning her around (she is unharmed) and on another occasion the man accidentally stomps on the foot of another man. A boy running through a crowd runs into a girl, who grabs his shoulders and calms him. A boy runs into an older man, who drops a book. A man angrily shoves a girl as he walks past her. A man, half-jokingly, asks a girl why his dog is barking at a boy, and the man tells the boy that his dog is "disturbed by his appearance."
 Throughout the movie we see a woman's small dog snap at, bark and attack an older man, including nipping at the man's hand as the woman shouts at the dog. A dog bites and chews on a man's pant leg, the man shakes his leg and the dog eventually leaves the man alone; a woman shouts at the dog.
 A boy and a girl sit inside a clock suspended from the ceiling, the boy accidentally drops a tool, it hits the ground beside a dog, a man shouts at the clock and makes a snide remark about someone being intoxicated. A girl stands on a wobbly chair, she almost falls, steadies herself, the legs of the chair crack and the girl drops a large box, causing papers fly through the air (the girl is unharmed). Throughout the movie we see a boy pick pocketing small items, including food and trinkets.
 We briefly see the following silent movie footage: two men boxing one another in a boxing ring, a group of "demons" chase the men around, "aliens" chase a man, then jump onto the back of a rocket as the man climbs into the rocket, a man fires a pistol at the screen, a puff of smoke is seen, a train crashes off a bridge and smoke and fake flames are seen coming from the wreckage. A boy and a girl watch a movie, we see the girl look surprised and slightly scared as she watches and we see a man climb the outside of a tall building and grab onto a window, which a man flips open and the man grabs a clock that begins to break as the man hangs from it. On multiple occasions we see footage of an old movie with a rocket ship crashing into the moon that has the face of a man; the face winces in pain and appears to shout (the film is silent) and we see drawings of a rocket sticking out of the "eye" of the face of the moon. We see scenes from a film that include skeletons dancing around three men holding swords, and a small explosion is seen and it appears as though the dancing skeletons disappear in a puff of smoke; three men swing swords, they are chased by a large fire-breathing dragon and we see sparks come from the nose of the dragon as the men pantomime stabbing the rubber neck of the large dragon. We see drawings become animated: a large dragon breathes fire and a demon appears to run around the piece of paper.
 A man shouts at a boy saying that the boy would be in an orphanage if he had not taken him in. A man shouts at a girl and a boy. A boy shouts and throws cans off a table; he slams his hands onto the table and begins to cry. A man tells a woman, who looks horrified, that a man's body had been discovered at the bottom of a river after being there for a presumably extended amount of time. An older man scolds a boy, telling him he will report the boy to a station inspector, who will "lock him up." A girl scolds and shushes a boy, telling him that they could get in trouble. A girl tells a boy that an older man had been upset by the discovery of the boy's notepad. An older woman scolds a girl and a boy. An older man scolds a boy and begins to cry. An older woman weeps and tells a boy and a girl that they "should not know such sadness." A man gruffly tells a boy that his father had died in a fire.
 A boy tells a girl that his father is dead. A girl tells a boy that her parents had died in an accident. A girl asks a boy if his father is dead and the boy tells the girl he does not want to talk about it. A boy tearfully tells a man that he does not understand why his father had died. A boy reads aloud a passage from a book to a girl; the passage reads that a man (the girl's caregiver) had been killed during a war and the girl shouts that it is not true because she knows her caregiver is alive. A man tells a boy and a girl that a man had died during a war, "like so many more"; the boy and the girl tell the man that the other man is not dead, as stated in a book, but alive and well. A man wearing a leg brace tells a woman that he had been injured in a war and the woman responds that her brother had been killed in a war. A man tells another man that his wife is missing and shows the man what is presumably a photograph of his wife; the man remarks, "Are you sure you want to find her?" A girl jokingly tells a boy that she had just saved his life. A man awkwardly asks a woman, "Are they smelly?" in reference to flowers -- he had previously been talking about cow's udders, so the woman appears confused.
 On two occasions we see people gasp and shield their faces as they watch movie footage of a train coming toward them while a voiceover explains that the people had feared for their safety when they saw the train. A man's leg brace freezes with a rusty clank, the sound echoes through a train station and a woman is confused by the sound.
 We see a painting of a soldier wearing a gas mask collapsed on the ground. Footage of soldiers marching is seen as an older man's voiceover explains that soldiers returning from a traumatic war had witnessed so much that they were no longer interested in movies. We see a large sarcophagus in a museum with the relief of a deceased person cast on the lid.

LANGUAGE 1 - Name-calling (little thief, thief and a liar, nothing but a reprobate, little urchin, filthy little mitts, little vermin, doltish, simple minded, two rats, idiots, bloody buffoon, shanackered drunk, fat cantaloupe), 1 exclamation (bloody).

SUBSTANCE USE - On multiple occasions we see a man taking sips from a flask (presumably filled with alcohol), a man takes a swig from a flask (presumably filled with liquor), throughout the movie a man is referred to as a "drunk," a man accuses another man of being drunk and then blacking out, a man frequently refers to another man as a drunk, and we see wine glasses at a restaurant. We see men with cigarettes between their lips on multiple occasions but not actively smoking, an older man places a cigarette between his lips and then steps aside as we see movie footage of a man with a cigarette in his mouth, smoke is seen billowing through a restaurant, coming from an ashtray and surrounding a man's head and although no cigarettes are visible it is implied to be cigarette smoke.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - The importance of preserving history, death of a parent, coping with loss, despair, dejection, happy endings, finding one's place in the world.

MESSAGE - It is important to understand history. Every person is important.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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