Review of Les Misérables (2012) by Nick P — 21 Dec 2014

GRADE: C+.

3 out of 5 stars.

LES MISERABLES is epic in feel once you get excited, but after the first act, the story starts to feel less and less rich and more and more like its title. Though not all the way, perhaps. It still has its moments of impeccable emotion and a showstopper by Anne Hathaway, but that disappears with unnecessary close-ups and overblown live, drawn out singing.

LES MISERABLES tells the story of Jean Valjean, a man who is sentenced to 19 years in prison for stealing some bread and is rival to the man in charge, Javert, while also keeping a promise he made years earlier.

Hugh Jackman, performance-wise, is captivating as Valjean. He's brave, trustworthy, kind-hearted and becomes broken and weak by life as the story progresses. He gives Valjean a rooting factor and is likable from start to finish. As far as singing goes on the other hand, Jackman is well known as a terrific theatrical singer. He can definitely carry a tune in this, but he does something with his voice that is more strange than anything- and that's not in a good way either. It's real, as is all the singing evidently, but real doesn't exactly mean good.

Anne Hathaway is the Jennifer Hudson of this spectacle except that her part is shortened to about twenty minutes. Despite Jackman's worthy efforts, she has the only showstopping number out of the whole cast and she nails it. With tears, pleading, begging, struggling and being taken advantage of, you cannot help but feel massive sympathy for the ill-fated Fantine. She's the symbol of an innocent, meekful soul that had been crushed by life.

Russell Crowe, oh Russell Crowe. He's always been up and down for me. He can be excellent and gripping as he was as Maximus in Gladiator or solid, but underwhelming as he was in American Gangster. In Les Mis, oh does he try so very hard- but alas, it just does not work. He has potential decent moments as the villainous Javert, but he does not give him an intimidating presence nor does he have the correct pipes for him. Vocally, he's the worst, the most cringe-worthy. And he doesn't improve much in his performance.

The rest of the cast is excessively uneven; Eddie Redmayne was very wishy washy for me as he was either a big ball of vulnerable, naive emotion or just blind. I never felt the full spark between neither him and Eponine nor him and Cosette. He makes Marius more neutral for me than anything. He's not a dislikable character but he's not exactly a great hero. Samantha Banks was exceptional as Eponine, with her best scene being emotional number before dying after a gunshot wound. Amanda Seyfried captured Cosette's doll face and innocence, but did no real effort.

Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen as the swindling Thenardiers were nothing but stupid fools with heavy cocky, drunklike accents, especially going towards Cohen. They could have been genuine comic relief as they were intended to for a depressing musical such as this, but they were just useless.

In regards to the live singing, it SHOULD have been mixed with pre-recording. It is very understandable that Tom Hooper wanted to create a raw effect for this type of musical and this type of story for the actors' emotions, but how can you do that several actors cannot sing. They try, but there was obviously no training. Speaking of that, I didn't like how the characters sang to the point where there was hardly any dialogue and this is coming from a person who loves musicals. Many numbers felt unnecessary and drawn out. Sometimes, I didn't know when a song ended.

Hooper directs LES MIS with his own style and doing close ups to capture the reaction and emotion of his cast's raw portrayals, but sometimes it feels too much and forced and self-indulgent. While the sets are gorgeous and authentic, there was something that I felt was somewhat over the top about the whole thing trying to be an epic spectacle.

In spite of it all, LES MIS is actually interesting in storytelling once you get past its many flaws. It's a story of promise, love, protection and sadness. Hence the title, all of the characters suffer greatly, whether it be from death, poverty, misogynistic control or mistreatment from others or the effects of the French Revolution. At times, it was on the borderline of clogged melodrama, but then toned it down.

LES MISERABLES is overblown occasionally, conceited in a sense and strained vocally and technically, but it's ambitious potential and cast saves the day from it being torn up trash.