Les Misérables

I loved everything about this movie except for Russell Crowe, who had no business at all being in it. His acting was mediocre and his singing abysmal. The rest of the cast, though, was amazing. Hugh Jackman - He did a fabulous job as Jean Valjean! Some people have criticized his singing, but I disagree. It had an edge to it that really played well into Valjean's character and he made the role come alive. I think Hugh Jackman as Valjean *might* surpass Hugh Jackman as Wolverine (well, maybe not THAT far...) Anne Hathaway - She deserved that Oscar. All I can say is AMAZING!!! Amanda Seyfried - Her acting was great and I completely respect her for getting a voice double to handle her songs. A great decision that was best for the movie. She was a high soprano with a voice like a bell--perfect for the role. Sasha Baren Cohen & Helena Bonham Carter - They did a good job at being despicable in a comic relief sort of way. Which is too bad, really. While they were scummy, they failed to be truly evil. Even when Bonham Carter was threatening abuse against the child Cosette, she didn't come across as intimidating or even very dark. Same when Baren Cohen brought a bunch of thugs to rob and possibly murder Valjean. He just didn't pull off the darkness. Still, they did their roles well overall. That-guy-who-played-Marius: Great job! He really gave Marius a personality that I had trouble getting from the play and gave him a true place in the story. His voice was great, and I was blown away by his performance in "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables". The direction wasn't the best, but he was at his best. That-gal-who-played-Eponine: AMAZING! She really understood Eponine and all the details that made her who she was. The way she emotionally rose and fell at each interaction with Marius was subtle, but perfect. And when she sang On My Own, she had a moment there that just about moved me to tears. Colm Wilkinson (the Bishop of Digny): I was so pleased to see him in the movie. Colm was the original Broadway Valjean and the decision to include him as Father Bienvenue, the Bishop of Digny, was beautiful. It seemed like a little thing, but as a longtime fan of the play, it means a LOT. Russell Crowe: What can I say. He should NOT have been in this movie. He was like the aftertaste of a pill you had in your mouth for too long before swallowing. His singing sounded like someone trying to talk while yawning and his voice and acting lacked the passion, conviction, and wholehearted devotion to the play that everyone around him seemed to have. I wish his suicide in the movie would have been 2 hours earlier so we could be done with him. Regardless of his lack of singing and acting ability in the movie (don't get me wrong, I LOVE Gladiator, liked Master and Commander, and liked A Beautiful Mind) this is an absolute MUST SEE.

I'm twenty-seven years late to Les Miserables, the musical. I'll admit it. I wasn't interested until the movie was getting press. It looked really cool, and the likelihood of me ever seeing it on stage seemed slim and not something I really, hugely wanted. So I went with my friend, who'd already seen the stage show and the movie (she went before I did). I can honestly say that there are three narratives that have altered the course of my life, and they're the Lord of the Rings, Supernatural, and now, most recently, Les Mis. As a rule, I don't do tragedy. I don't do stories where everybody dies. I refuse to do Titanic for that very reason. But dear god, am I glad that I made the exception for this one. The Movie is an enormous, beautiful mix of the fantastic musical with snippets of canon from the book thrown in. Bahorel's back, though he never made the musical, Enjolras and Grantaire die side-by-side as in the brick, and nobody's quite as romanticized by the movie as they are by the musical, and I love it. I couldn't have asked for a better introduction. Russell Crowe will always be my Javert, for example. He brings a depth to the man that can't be done on stage. I love stage!Javert, I do -- Norm Lewis is fantastic and rigid as iron in the 25th anniversary special, for example -- but Crowe, Crowe gives me a sadder Javert, a Javert who is falling even before he seems to realize it himself. And he is /gentler/, too; when he tells Fantine, "I have heard such protestations/Every day for twenty years/Let's have no more explanations/Save your breath, save your tears," he almost seems to pity her. Stage!Javert, on the other hand, is often openly disdainful with these lines, often emphasizing that last word as though the idea of the "whore" crying sickens him because she is a criminal and in his eyes deserves it and should take it without weeping, I don't mourn stage-Javert, I pity him. But Crowe's Javert made me hurt for him, and he remains one of my favorite parts of the movie. Anne Hathaway may not be the most vocally powerful Fantine we've ever had, but the starkness of Fantine's plight makes for brilliant cinema in ways that, again, the stage show can't. Reordering "I Dreamed a Dream" to come after "Lovely Ladies" is an inspired choice, because it renders the song to be part of the very lowest, darkest point in Fantine's tragedy. Moving forward, the "barricade boys" are absolutely brilliant. With Killian Donnelly (a former Enjolras on stage) as Combeferre and Broadway star Aaron Tveit as Enjolras, we're in very good hands for Les Amis de l'ABC. Tveit brings a brilliant physicality to the part of Enjolras, and his facing his mortality in "Drink With Me" (which, unfortunately enough, cuts out Grantaire's fairly pivotal verse to that effect) with nothing more than a few sorrowful looks is absolutely brilliant. I love Enjolras more than practically any other fictional character, and Tveit is one of my favorite people who've played him. Many of the barricade boys are even better upon rewatching -- I didn't fall in love with Combeferre until my third viewing, when I realized how much he loves the rest of the Amis, how willing he is to take care of all of them in his way. He's their arsenal (alluded to when he is double-wielding pistols on the barricade) and their guide and dies with a comforting hand on Joly's arm. Feuilly is also wonderful, and the friendship between Courfeyrac and Gavroche is absolutely heartbreaking, with Courf sobbing openly when Gavroche is murdered. But most understated and most beautiful, I think, is George Blagden as Grantaire, the group's cynic and drunk. As I mentioned before, Grantaire's verse in "Drink With Me" was cut, which is a pretty major piece of characterization for both him and for, in many stage productions, his dynamic with Enjolras. In the brick, it's stated flat out that Grantaire worships Enjolras, and Blagden's Grantaire makes it clear with every movement, every glance, from beginning to end. He captures the essence of the cynic with only one thing to believe in, and I could write reams of analysis on the subject. Cinematically, the film is almost perfect. The only issue I had is the overuse of background blurring in "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables." But that's literally, along with the missing DWM verse, the only flaw in the movie. I'm a film major, and I can only dream of ever making a movie this perfect, and this apropos to the time it's been released. You see, we're, globally, in a time of intense political, economic, and social upheaval. We, in the US specifically, are a culture in flux. A culture due, I think, for a few revolutions. Without Les Mis, I wouldn't have become nearly as passionate for change as I am, and I certainly wouldn't have sat down and decided to read a book with 2600 pages in it for fun and then proceed to start a project where I give my summer to Enlightenment-through-post-1848 political discourse. Les Mis opened me up to a whole new universe of possibility for my future, and I think it has for a lot of its new fans, even though it's so solidly set in the past. I have to call forth the final lines of "Finale," here -- "Will you join in our crusade?/Who will be strong and stand with me?/Somewhere beyond the barricade/is there a world you long to see?/Do you hear the people sing?/Say do you hear the distant drums?/It is the future that we bring when tomorrow comes!" The story asks us to look at the world around us. And, when we find it wanting, stand up and do something about it. And that's a message I can throw myself behind wholeheartedly. The future doesn't just come; we make it, we shape it into what it is -- that's the whole point, in the end, of the story. With love, and because of love, we are strong enough to fight for the future we want and deserve. Maybe we'll fail. Maybe we'll only have reward in Heaven. And maybe we'll succeed. But we'll never know which if we never try.

La más emotiva de todas las versiones que se han hecho, muy recomendable

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This review has been in the making for about 5 months. I have been putting it off because I wanted to do it justice and give a fair, balanced review. Of course, I was tempted to write one immediately after I saw it, but there were other factors that might have given it a bias; I was lucky enough, completely by chance and luck (I had no idea until the day), to attend the premiere of this film, and meet the cast, so I would have given it 5 stars even if it had been rubbish. So I watched it again over a month later, and then I had absolutely no doubt at all that my first impression was right. This film is something else. One daily mail critic called it "not only the most ambitious British film of all time, it's the best" or words to that effect. And certainly this film is ambitious. Hooper's directing can be a bit too ambitious in that it doesn't always work; this film is so 'big' and he attempts to convey that but at times the editing is shoddy and the camera work sub par. And yet this does not detract at all from the viewing experience. In fact, it lends it a raw quality which is completely perfect for this gritty story, and this is further helped by the fact that the cast sing live. Some reviewers have complained that the singing is below-par, but this is exactly what I think makes this film so brilliant. I am not a huge fan of musicals in general, as I find it a tad annoying when actors suddenly burst into beautiful song. However, here, most of the film is sung and it makes sense for the voices not to be beautifully polished. I remain extremely impressed with the super-talented cast; not one cast member disappointed me. I loved both Crowe and Jackman's performances (in particular Jackman's- to me he held the film together). Similarly the supporting cast were exceptional; Hathaway deserves her oscar, and Barks and Seyfried were wonderful as Eponine and Cosette. I must add that I had never seen the musical before (having not really been a fan of musicals, although I have seen it now) and yet this completely blew me away. The wonderful thing is that through the film you can get the stunning visuals and emotional intensity that is completely missing from the stage version. Of course, if you want to hear a wonderfully able cast sing these songs, the stage version is for you, but for me I preferred the raw, real, unpolished voices of the actors in the film. Victor Hugo's story is so powerful and I believe the film does it better justice than the stage, which is more about the quality of the singing. In short, even 5 months later, this film still resonates with me, and not because I had a wonderful conversation with Eddie Redmayne, but because it's ambitious. It's unpolished. It's different.

Wie ich schon bei der Highlight-CD verkündet habe: "Les Miz" ist und bleibt mein Lieblingsstück unter den Musicals. Gerade dass es mehr Oper als Musical ist und nahezu gänzlich auf Dialoge verzichtet, macht es so mitreißend - eine wunderschöne Melodie löst die nächste ab, jedes Lied bringt die Stimmung perfekt rüber. Generell muss man schon zwischen Bühne und Film unterscheiden - die Medien sind zu unterschiedlich, aber wenn man das Bühnenstück im Hinterkopf hat, sind natürlich gewisse Erwartungen da. So fällt es bei der Bühnenfassung gar nicht auf, wie sehr durch manche Szenen gehetzt wird, weil im Theater so viele visuelle und akustische Reize mitspielen, im Film hingegen fällt es doch mitunter auf (z. B. die Szene im Gericht). Das war für mich zwar nicht so irritierend, ich könnte mir aber vorstellen, dass dem einen oder anderen, der das Musical nicht kennt, das negativ auffällt. Und während ich Kostümierung und Maske phantastisch fand, sind mir die Bluescreen-Effekte teilweise sauer aufgestoßen; das alte Paris wirkte zum Teil dermaßen CGI, dass es die ganze Authentizität kaputt gemacht hat (z. B. bei "Stars"). Der Film lebt aber vor allem von den Darstellern - das merkt man schon allein an den vielen Close-ups (man bedenke, dass "I dreamed a dream" nur aus einer Nahaufnahme von Anne Hathaways Gesicht besteht). Hugh Jackman und Anne Hathaway spielen sich wirklich die Seele aus dem Leib und wirken auf mich auch keineswegs überzogen und hyperdramatisch, wenngleich mir nach wie vor nicht gefällt, dass Hugh Jackmans Stimme des Öfteren etwas gepresst klingt und gerade "Bring him home" viel zu sehr rausbrüllt. Aber seine Verwandlung vom Gefangenen zum Bürgermeister zum alten, gebrechlichen Mann ist schon sehr beeindruckend. Neben den hervorragenden Darstellern mit Musicalerfahrung (Aaron Tveit und Samantha Barks) sticht für mich aber Eddie Redmayne am meisten heraus. Nicht nur eine klasse Stimme (vor allem in den Höhen), sondern auch grandios gespielt. "Empty chairs at empty tables" ist mir jedenfalls nähergegangen als "I dreamed a dream" (das ich schon phantastisch fand). Russell Crowe hat (zurecht) die meiste Kritik abbekommen. Beim Durchhören der CD fand ich seine Stimme schon schwach, hab aber darauf gesetzt, dass mich sein Schauspiel überzeugt - dem ist leider nicht so. Wenn man Mimik mit Jackman und Hathaway vergleicht, so hat Crowe eigentlich die ganze Zeit den gleichen Gesichtsausdruck und ist zu sehr darauf fokussiert, die Töne einigermaßen richtig zu singen, worunter das Schauspiel insgesamt leidet. Javert, eine starke Persönlichkeit, die nur Schwarz und Weiß kennt, kommt insgesamt zu schwach rüber. Immerhin sind die Töne an sich richtig - und wenn man sich auf YouTube mal ein paar Videos mit Crowe ansieht, merkt man auch, dass er eigentlich gar keine schlechte Stimme hat - aber für diese Art von Musik einfach total unpassend. Da hat beispielsweise Amanda Seyfried den Vorteil, dass sie schauspielerisch sehr in die Rolle der Cosette passt, wenngleich auch ihr Gesang eher dünn ist. Immerhin war ich vom letzten Ton bei "A heart full of love", der ja ziemlich hoch ist, sehr angenehm überrascht. Auch kleinere Rollen wie der Vorarbeiter in der Fabrik, Gavroche und einige der Studenten, sind wirklich toll besetzt. Mit meinen Kritikpunkten würde ich am liebsten 4.5 Sterne vergeben, aber weil mich der Film nicht nur trotz Länge gut unterhalten, sondern auch tief berührt hat, bekommt er die volle Anzahl an Sternen. Jedem, der das Musical kennt und/oder Englisch gut versteht, empfehle ich die Originalversion. Die "deutsche" Fassung ist größtenteils untertitelt, nur die wenigen Dialoge haben sie dann doch synchronisiert anstatt einfach den Film komplett zu untertiteln, was vermutlich etwas irritierend ist (sagte man mir). Die Texte sind sprachlich nicht unanspruchsvoll, aber meiner Meinung nach gut zu verstehen, sogar die Passagen, in denen recht dreckiges Britisch gesprochen wird (z. B. Gavroche). Dass die Reihenfolge der Lieder verändert wurde, die Lieder zum Teil gekürzt und die Texte abgeändert oder sogar erweitert wurden, hat mich überhaupt nicht gestört oder irritiert. Es hat gut gepasst und war nicht weniger schlüssig als bei der Bühnenfassung. Insgesamt eine gelungene Adaption, die die Hoffnung weckt, dass vielleicht ein paar mehr Musicals der Sprung auf die Leinwand gelingt - vor allem denen, die es hierzulange nicht (mehr) gibt (einmal abgesehen von den horrenden Ticketpreisen).

Great musical movie, lots of star performers.