Les Misérables (2012) - Starring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helen Bonham Carter, Eddie Redmayne, Aaron Tveit, Samantha Barks. Written by William Nicholson, Alain Boubil, Claude-Michel Schönberg, and Herbert Kretzmer. Based on the musical written by Alain Boubil and Claude-Michel Schönberg, based on the book by Victor Hugo. Directed by Tom Hooper. Rated PG-13. Available on DVD.
I'll be completely honest. I avoided this movie like the plague when it was first released. Why would I want to submit myself to two and a half hours of non-stop singing and one of the most depressing plots ever? I read the book, I knew what was coming. Did I really need to see the movie? Well, I did, and I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed it. It's still not a movie I would probably watch more than once, but it was quite enjoyable.
Les Misérables, adapted from the stage musical which is in turn adapted from Victor Hugo's novel, tell the story of the convict Jean Valjean (Jackman) who tries to make a new life for himself and the police officer Javert (Crowe) who is trying to turn him in. That's just the basic summery. There's plenty of other romantic triangles, fights, and deaths in between (a quick thought about that. The fight scenes in this looked atrociously fake. It was quite jarring actually how terrible they looked). The acting - and singing- was quite good in this film, the weak link (as countless others have said before me) is Crowe, but I did not find him as insufferable as many others did. A surprisingly great performance that I hadn't heard many people praise was that of Samathana Barks's Eponine, a role which she played on Broadway. She did quite great with the role and I'm interested to see her next film role.
I was not a huge fan of the style of direction used in this film. The extreme, prolonged close-ups were overused and irritating to me. However, the emotional power of the film is still effectively expressed on screen and that's what makes this film worth a watch.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
No comments:
Post a Comment