Hugo

Academy Award-wining director Martin Scorsese has created a family film based off the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret and it’s exactly what you’d expect. This is not your typical fast-paced kid 3-D flick so it's likely that young kids will be bored. Yeah, for a film where every scene seems to contains a clock, it has a mostly plodding pace.

But as an adult, it’s an alluring film to watch in 3-D from the opening sequence (a whirlwind dash from the Paris skyline through a crowded bus station) to an homage to the Lumiere brothers' 1897 film Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat, where audiences flinched in horror as a train appeared to be headed right at them.

Hugo is about a boy, a magician and a mystery, but it is also very much an expression of the filmmaker’s love of cinema. And it’s truly one for the movie house - this one isn’t going to be as much fun on DVD.

Simply put: Scorsese tries a family-friendly 3-D movie and delivers, like clockwork. More about magic than magical, but very much what you’d expect from Scorsese.

 
Award potential: Nominated for more Academy Awards (11) than any other films this year. A front-runner for director and many technical awards.

The ten buck review: Worth ten bucks plus glasses. See this in 3-D, on the big screen.