Theo

I have so many things to say about Les Misérables the Movie. It was honestly sad how terrible this movie was. I have been a massive fan of Les Mis for many years, and this is by far its worst adaptation and performance. First of all, the singing was not well done. Russell Crowe cannot sing for his life, and the fact that he was cast as a main character made it so much worse. He could've gotten away with it if he was more of a background character but since he was THE Javert, it was generally upsetting. If you need someone to sing "Stars", you need a good singer. Anne Hathaway, in general, was fine, but during "I Dreamed a Dream", you could barely understand what she was saying. I don't know why the directors would tell her to cry through the whole song, it makes it so much less appealing to listen to. It would be much better if they told her to only use facial expressions and a sniffle and cry here and there, but for it to be throughout the entire song was a terrible choice. Now, I only have one thing to say about Samantha Barks, she has played Éponine on stage in the past and was absolutely incredible. Her vocals are amazing, but in the movie, it felt like she had to "dumb it down" for the other actors who couldn't sing, and it was just sad to watch. Hugh Jackman's performance surprised me, I think he did a great job singing in The Greatest Showman, but it went downhill in Les Mis. At most, he was just average, and that is all I can say about his singing. I also think he was not fit for the role of Jean Valjean, I cannot pinpoint what about it was off, but when I think of Hugh Jackman, the image of Valjean doesn't sit right with me. And the fact that he decided to stop drinking water for 6 days for his role is INSANE. That just seems dangerous at that point. Now to move on from the singing, I also had a complaint about the camera work in this movie. The visuals themselves were great, and many shots were very beautifully done, but some of the decisions on camera work were strange. I wished there were more still shots of the characters when they were singing, where you could see their whole body and not just their shoulders and up, for instance, in the Rue Plummet robbery scene with Éponine, the camera being zoomed into her face while she screamed (also the fact that the camera was shaking) was a huge turn off for me. It would have been great if she screamed and you could see the other characters' reactions to it, and the sudden panic that they knew they had to get away in the moment. The casting overall was just bad. They focused way too much on getting famous faces on the big screen than actually taking the time to consider if they would be right for the role, and if they could sing the part (the bad singing made me hate this movie with a passion). To make a good adaptation of a musical, especially if it's a megamusical (a musical with practically no dialogue whatsoever) you NEED to cast people who can sing, otherwise, the movie will immediately be bad. All in all, Les Misérables was truly just a poor attempt at turning an amazing musical into a movie. If you want to see Les Mis, please buy a ticket to an actual performance that will have actual talent on stage, not whatever this was.