Les Miserables

Les Miserables (aka the film where the actors sing songs with the camera right in front of them) was released. Hailed to be the return of the Broadway musical, this film fell short, way short.
Now, the plot is a complicated one, so I won't go into all of that because it isn't necessary. The first problem came right in the very beginning. Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) is a slave for simply stealing a loaf of bread and then trying to run away. He is pulling a boat into the harbor with a bunch of other slaves, singing a great song "Look Down". However, I thought the whole thing, with water everywhere looked like a set and not at all realistic.
Then came something good,after eight years have past, Valjean has created a new identity and opened a factory. Fantine (Anne Hathaway, clearly the best of the film) arrives. She was brilliant as the long suffering mother of Cosette (Isabelle Allen, quite good). Upon the discovery that she has an illegitimate child, she is cast out of her factory job and forced to sell her hair, her teeth and eventually, her body. This causes her to sing "I Dreamed a Dream". The number was quite good and it was filmed in one uninterrupted take, with the whole song focusing on her face. Was it a good film choice, no, but will it win her an Oscar, maybe. Only time will tell, as it was one of the best scenes of the film, with heavy emotion and great singing.
And then she dies, as everyone knows. Valjean goes to fetch young Cosette from the nasty innkeepers who rob their customers blind, the Thenardiers (Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen) who treat her horribly. However, there is a problem. That problem is Javert (Russell Crowe) who is a soldier who discovers that Valjean has created a new identity and thus has escaped parole. Valjean and the young Cosette must go into hiding.
Another nine years pass. Cosette has grown up and became Amanda Seyfried (the weak link of the film) and the citizens of France are starting an uprising again, led by Marius (Eddie Redmayne) and Enjolras (Aaron Tveit, great). Here we also meet Eponine, the daughter of the Thenardiers (Samantha Barks). She does not like her parents, but I could not feel sorry for her. She is jealous of Cosette, but I found no sympathy for her either. She dies, tragically, disguised as a boy, fighting for the crusade, with her love for Marius never being reciprocated. Instead, Marius only has eyes for Cosette. But Valjean and Cosette must run away, as his true identity has been discovered again. She writes him a letter, but Eponine discovers it and does not give him to him until she is nearly dying, trying to be a hero in her final breath. Marius then asks the small child Gavroche (Daniel Huttlestone) to deliver a letter to Valjean. Upon receiving this, Valjean joins the cause and sings of Marius's youth. After the barricade is fired upon, Valjean recuses an injured Marius and carts him through the sewers to save him. Once Marius recovers, he prepares to marry Cosette and Valjean finally tells him the truth about his past. This scene killed me. Valjean is revealing intimate details of his life, stuff he never told to Cosette and yet Marius's face remains unchanged. This got on my last nerve.
This sets up the wedding scene and Valjean's death finale. However, after his death, he walks away and the film ends with everyone that had died throughout the film singing "Do You Hear the People Sing?". It was odd. I perceived it to be heaven, but I don't really know what they were going for.
And what happens to Javert. He pretends to be joining to the rebels but is really a double spy. He is captured and is given to Valjean who spares his life, to his dismay. Later, he nearly kills Valjean again, but then commits suicide by tossing himself into the river, with a horrible sound effect included.
The main problems I had with the film were Cosette's awfully weak singing voice, and the fact that her character seemed one-dimensional. Marius was only slightly better. Sometimes his voice came across well, but other times it failed. Russell Crowe turned in a rather weak performance as the villain. He does hit the notes, but I found his voice to be different from what the character needed. Even Hugh Jackman could have done better as Jean Valjean, but at least he was mostly good, aging pretty well. Samantha Barks did have a nice voice, but she could also have been better. I blame Tom Hopper, who did so well with The King's Speech, but this was just too much to handle. I feel like having the actor's sing live, which is something I always wanted is also just too much as they focus on the words more than the emotions. And the camera angles, with some long uninterrupted scenes are also not that great. The costumes and art design is pretty good though the Thenadiers are certainly over the top. The death of the small child was also truly heart-wrenching especially after tragic shooting in Newtown. Still, the film covers a lot of ground and tells an epic story with great songs included. But I didn't find myself as invested as I would have hoped, barely crying at the end, when I should have been sobbing. However, Anne Hathaway was truly brilliant. Grade: B+