Les Misérables

On Wednesday I went to see Les Mis in the cinema.

Unfortunately I had terrible seats so that I ended up with a headache half way through as I was craning my neck up to see the screen (a combination of stupid taxi drivers and the fact my mum thought we had to line up until my cousin went and asked and we were told they were already let in.

But my tentative review is below...

****SPOILERS*****


Well first thing to say is I've never seen another version of Les Mis. Everyone makes out that it is this brilliant thing that everyone must have seen, but no, I hadn't. I'd heard of it, but to be honest if it hadn't been for the cast (Helena Bonham Carter, Sacha Baron Cohen, Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway) I possibly wouldn't have seen it in the cinema.

Classic it might be, but to think everyone should already love it... No. Well not in many people I knows case. And it isn't because we're low brow or whatever its just because we have other things we prefer.

But that is just a disclaimer.

So the film starts with Jackmans character Jean Valjean in slavery receiving his parole from Crowe's character Javert. He was arrested for stealing bread to feed his nephew and had been a slave for 19 (?) years. Unfortunately a life on parole means he'll forever be an outcast so Jean Valjean goes on the run. Years later he has a new identity and owns a workshop were we meet Hathaways character Fantine. She loses her job and ends up as a prostitute. Valjean saves her just for her to die in the hospital. Whilst this is going on Javert has turned up and is convinced that Valjean is, well Valjean, but after someone else is caught and accused of being Valjean he believes he's made a mistake. But on Fantine's death bed he realises that Valjean is, well.... Valjean. But Valjean has promised to look after Fantines daughter Cosette who is with an innkeeper, so he escapes to save her.

He finds Cosette in the clutches of criminals (kind of) the innkeeper Fantine had left her with treated her like a servant, the innkeepers being played by Bonham Carter and Baron Cohen. Valjean pays them off and escapes with Cosette to go into hiding.

Another 9 years later and we join a group of young men in Paris getting ready to revolt. Whilst leaving his group Marius lays eyes on Cosette and falls in love. Then it kind of splits, you have Javert trying to get into the revoltion group to scupper their plans, but fails and becomes prisoner, then Valjean saves his life so when Javert "captures" Valjean he can't kill him so kills himself....

Marius and his friends start the revolution but they end up being the only barricade left, everyone else in the barricade dies but Valjean saves Marius for Cosettes sake.

Valjean is only there because he read a letter from Marius saying he loved Cosette.

And Marius only found Cosette because he's friends with the innkeepers daughter Éponine who then finds Cosette. She then dies in the barricade as she is in love with Marius and jumps in front of a gun to save him.

In the end Cosette and Marius marry, whilst Valjean runs away, scared to tell Cosette the truth. Cosette and Marius find him on his death bed were he is sang to his death by Fantine (in a nice way) whilst he gets to see Cosette before he dies.

That isn't the best summary but it is a quick one and gets the main points across.

First the story....

I guess because I don't know the whole story the whole thing didn't make much sense for me, I let that go though as a lot of musicals don't make much sense to me until you read what the writer WANTED it to mean or novelizations about it.

I'd get why the Valjean wouldn't want Cosette to know he was a criminal but then again he only stole a loaf of bred to save someone, a kid at that, so I don't know why it was such a terrible thing.

Saying that it didn't detract from the actual film.

It was beautifully cast and was wonderfully filmed. I actually feel quite sorry for Crowe's character for some reason, he played the part amazingly well.

The film didn't feel like it lagged at all, the only problem alas was with the seating. It was actually a very enjoyable film going from one situation to the next flawlessly.

The singing was quite nice. Crowe wasn't as bad as people had made out, I really liked him. I thought some of the lines that were being sang were a bit pointless. There is a brief part with Crowe and Jackman were Valjean has just saved someone from being crushed by their cart and Javert realizes it is Valjean and is about to say so, so Valjean asks him to speak his mind. The line is sang but it sounded out of tune and totally pointless.

In fact if anything I think Valjean seemed to be the character with the out of tune lines to sing, not that I think Jackman was out of tune, as they would have made loads of takes so it was obvious that was the way the director wanted it to sound, but it did take you out of it for a second.

Hathaway was brilliant for the small amount she is on the screen.

But by far my favorite moment of the whole movie was Bonham Carter and Baron Cohen. All their songs were fun, lively and sang well. They both had me giggling and you needed that in a movie that was very sad. They added a little bit of color to the whole movie.

In all it was a wonderful film, and most of the cinema was crying by the end. It had a great atmosphere.

For me I have to say I liked it less then movies more aimed at my demographic (geeks), for me it still lags behind what I see as a classic book adapted to film (The Hobbit) but it was by far one of the highlights of cinema. This year will have to aim very high to get close to this, and a lot of the films that was in the cinema last year as well!

My favorite character was Javert, I felt he was a misunderstood character who was only a bad guy because of the side he was in. When he gave his medal to the child that was killed in the barricades to show his bravery it was a real touching moment.

I loved a lot of the songs, I seem to prefer songs like Work Song, Master of the House and Do you hear the people sing. I do like having a beat behind the song and found the finale (Do you hear the people sing) the saddest song of them all.

Rating: 4.9/5