Wait a sec…how have we had so many threads and posts on this movie, and no one but me has mentioned the bizarre appearance of Santa Claus during “Master of the House”?! I found that insanely distracting.
Seriously…I didn’t hallucinate that, right? 
No hallucination, but I don’t see why it’s bizarre. The scene takes place around Christmas, apparently, and town square Santas aren’t a completely modern invention. Why NOT have the guy who’s playing Santa* stop in at the inn for a drinkie (and a quicky) after his shift? I kind of just accepted it as another example of the inn’s “regulars” who happens to be in the spirit of the season.
*although I suppose it would be Pere Noel, rather than Santa Claus…
Terrible film. I came into it never having seen any version before.
Maybe 4-5 legitimately good songs, but the rest was excruciating talk-singing.
Also was nowhere near as tear-inducing as I was led to believe. I only teared up once. (I’m a big softie. I tear up at any emotional / uplifting scene)
Also no mention that by the end, Hugh Jackman looks like he is doing a Michael Landon on Little House impression.
Saw that too. Made me smirk a bit. But I only have eyes for Miss Barks.
Lovely and talented as Miss Barks is, her shoulders are way too broad for that super tightly tied corset. Points deducted, Costume Designer! Bad bad choice! Go back to Costume Design school, do not pass “Go”, do not collect $200!
Seriously, what was the thought? “Well, she’s involved in a bizarre love triangle . . . I know! We’ll make her look like Bizarre Triangle Lady!”
I’m guessing it was, “This actress has a phenomenal figure, so let’s show it off.”
Worked for me.
After seeing it twice, I seem to agree with the majority here.* But I’m surprised to see no mention of the ways the movie improved on the play.
Valjean truly was a desperate animal by the time he reached the Bishop’s house. Can’t do that in a play because he has to be the healthy and robust M. le Maire four minutes later.
I thought the impossibility of life on parole was depicted much more convincingly — and in about the same amount of time — in the movie than in the play.
I’d always felt that the miserables tended to disappear from the second half of the play, that it became a political story about young (would-be) revolutionaries. The movie really brought home that the students were fighting for the common people, the poor.
Hijacking the funeral cortege — awesome!
Building the barricade from the ground up — not really important, but fun to watch.
- Hathaway: awesome
Crowe: good actor, but horribly miscast vocally
Barks: best voice in the film, one of the best performances
Seyfried: boring and bland, but that’s the role
New song: meh
Weir: wtf?
Big fan of the musical (seen it four times, know it by heart). Loved the movie. Sure, Russell Crowe appeared to have wandered in from a community college production of Jesus Christ Superstar happening down the street, but the rest was so good it didn’t bother me. Besides, they needed some big names in the big roles, and I’d rather live with Crowe’s Javert than a stunt-casted Marius. (cough Nick Jonas cough)
I suspect I’m mostly alone in thinking that the extreme close-ups during the big soliloquy scenes were a brilliant choice. They could have made those into big sweeping epic cinematography-fests, which would have been the obvious way to do it. But with this excellent bunch of actors, it’s way more inventive and interesting to zoom way in and let the song play out on their faces. Before you do a movie like this you should ask yourself what you can do with a movie that you can’t do on stage, and the biggest one I can think of is that in a movie you can capture the actors’ facial expressions. Playing that up was a good move.
Samantha Barks sang circles around everybody else. Not that they were bad (aside from Crowe), but among the big roles she was clearly the one who came from the musical theatre world. But Hathaway’s combination of acting and surprising vocal prowess made it her movie.
Jackman was excellent despite a limited dynamic range in his vocals–he doesn’t have quite enough difference between his big loud moments and his quiet moments. Then again, Valjean requires a pretty wide range in that regard, and I can’t imagine anyone else pulling this role off.
Overall, I can’t really imagine a much better film version of Les Mis. I went in skeptical, thinking I’d like it but not gush about it, and here I am gushing.
. . . but . . . they . . . didn’t show off her phenomenal figure, they distorted her figure into something inhuman and perverse. Look, I know that distorting the female figure is pretty much what corsets are all about but in this case they really went to a grotesque extreme.
In real life I don’t think I would ever describe her as being a broad-shouldered woman (and I just confirmed this with an image search), but her shoulders are a bit broad- such that the tightly bound corset really makes her look like a head perched upon a triangle balanced atop a waist.
Seriously, I thought she was going to start a fight with Particle Man at any moment.
Her extremely triangulated torso was bizarre enough that it was distracting. I had my niece with me, she agreed.
Didn’t work for me.
I didn’t notice it at all but when the movie ended my wife said “that was maybe the smallest waist I’ve ever seen in a movie.”
The way I remember it, there was one shot in which her waist looked bizarrely narrow. I put it down to an odd camera angle or something. The rest of the time she looked perfectly human.
It’s pretty clear she wasn’t overly bound up, given that she was able to sing throughout the film.
Yes, but he was living in a time when people — especially the man he was hiding from — believed that people can never change. Javert (and presumably the rest of the police force) were looking for a criminal. It would never occur to them that this wealthy, successful, honest man could have had a criminal past.
I noticed her waist was small, and it contrasted with her shoulders and her round face. I also noticed that she was singing, so it couldn’t have been that over-cinched.
I think there’s a difference between using closeups of the actor’s faces so you can see their expressions, and using the ultra-closeups this movie did where you can count blackheads and hair follicles.
Calling Nick Jonas stunt cast is like seeing a basketball movie with Michael Jordan and complaining “Really? Michael Jordan? The baseball player from the Birmingham Barons? Sure, he is tall enough and as a semi-pro baseball player, probably athletic enough to pull it off. But wouldn’t casting a no name college hoops player be better than the name recognition of a semi-pro baseballer?”
Prior to forming a boy band with his brothers, Nick had already been on Broadway in A Christmas Carol, Annie Get Your Gun, Beauty and the Beast, Les Misérables (albeit as Gavroche) and The Sound of Music.
All this learned after seeing him in the 25th at the O2 and saying “Nick Jonas? What stunt casting that is!” 
No kidding. The movie + my new Kindle Paperwhite inspired me to download and read the book. After thirteen chapters and 50+ pages Hugo is still introducing the bishop and his sister and the housekeeper. Other than that the only connection to the play is a mention of his candlesticks. 
Just wanted to point out that Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) gave his review of the movie.
He goes on, but that’s the best paragraph.
I saw Nick Jonas as Marius in London. He was pretty damn good. Just sayin.
I’m a big fan of the musical (and the music, full stop).
I loved the movie. I cried, multiple times. Every time Samantha Barks opened her mouth, for a start (Eponine is a tragic figure in many ways, blinded by love for Marius, but manipulative, too). The scene where Javert pins a medal on the body of Gavroche. The final scene.
I agree to some extent about Russell Crowe singing, but…
I had seen some clips of both he and Hugh Jackman performing parts during promotional events, including “The Confrontation” - they were suprisingly good. So I knew they could sing the parts - that makes the captured performance a stylist choice that I was willing to accept. And it did move the story along. And the tight, personal focus made it much more a story about the individuals.
Bits I missed - the Corpse Robbing song was almost completely cut, as was bits of Stars.
I’ll buy it to watch, but if I want to listen, I still have the 10th Anniversary Concert (although the 25th with Matt Lucas as Thenardier is fun).
I’ve not seen the stage show, but the movie didn’t work for me, on so many levels.
Am I the only one who felt that Gavroche and the Thenardiers had accidentally wandered onto the set from a nearby production of Oliver!?