Review of Les Misérables (2012) by Bartosz B — 04 Apr 2014

Les Miserables can be described as 'dutiful' and 'professional', but you'd expect no less with a film of these production values. The cinematography is good, the costuming and 'look' of the movie is impeccable, and the ensemble cast makes more sense than the 1998 film version.

The problem with Les Mis is that it really starts to feel its length by the end. In the first act of the movie, the combination of movie and song is great. In a film with very little spoken dialogue, the singing gives you the story at the same rate as normal dialogue would. The film is very quick to move from Jean Valjean's rise, Fantine's fall and their encounter which sets up the events of the rest of the film. After that, there is a seemingly endless wave of character songs (what might be considered monologues in spoken dialogue) that grinds the action to a halt. You know that there is going to be an epic showdown between the rebels and the King's guard, but the momentum is lost every time a character decides to put the plot on pause for 3-4 minutes. I get that that's how it is in the stage play or the novel, neither of which I have seen/read, but the second half of the movie just feels slow. It's a bad sign when you ask yourself how much plot there would be in this 2.5 hour epic if the songs were trimmed out of it.

If you plan on watching, make sure you watch it with enjoyable company. It's not a bad movie by any means, but I feel like watching it on your own would be an exercise in deciding whether or not to grab the remote and fast-forward until something interesting happens.