Review of Les Misérables (2012) by Grant S — 02 Mar 2014

Truth in marketing, for once.

The title of the movie accurately describes my experience of the movie. So kudos to Victor Hugo for being so honest in naming his book, and to the producers of this movie in retaining it. That is the only positive thing about the movie.

I generally dislike musicals (though there are some exceptions) and this has to be one of the more irritating ones. No dialogue at all, all music, written badly, sung badly.

The music sounds like someone took dialogue and tried to make it into music - the tunes sound so contrived. Other than Hugh Jackman, none of the cast can really sing, which makes it worse.

As for the plot, it became more and more difficult to follow, as one had to listen to the horrible songs to figure our what was going on. What I did pick up was incredibly over-convoluted.

I lasted 80 minutes, with gritted teeth and tortured ears, then gave up.

How this got so many Oscar nominations (incl Best Picture) and three wins, Heaven only knows. Clearly a lot of people in the Academy who think dialogue needs to be sung (and badly), not spoken...