Les Miserables: A Review

When I heard that the musical Les Miserables (or Les Mis to its legions of fans)  was going to be made into a movie, I wasn't sure what to think. I've always loved musicals, and Les Mis has been one of my favorites for years. I’ve seen it on stage twice, and at one point I had the original Broadway cast album practically memorized. I’m definitely a fan, but I wasn’t sold on the idea of a film adaptation. As much as I love musicals, I don’t care for the way they’ve been treated by Hollywood over the last several years. Between non-singing celebrities being cast in lead roles to movies that just seem to lack the energy of a live performance, most recent movie musicals just haven’t done it for me. I remained cautiously optimistic about the movie adaptation of Les Mis, but I was fully prepared to be underwhelmed.

Well, after seeing the movie for myself, I can honestly say that my fears were unfounded. It’s not perfect, but I think this version of Les Miserables will please fans of the stage show.


For those unfamiliar with Les Mis, it tells the story of Jean Valjean, an ex-convict in 19th Century France who violates his parole to create a new life for himself. Over the course of several years, Valjean befriends the dying prostitute Fantine, raises Fantine’s daughter as his own and gets caught up in the failed June Rebellion of 1832, all while being pursued by the fanatical police inspector Javert. It’s a story that covers a period of nearly two decades and involves several supporting characters, but the main focus is on Valjean’s journey of redemption and the lives affected by it.


Director Tom Hooper famously made some interesting choices as the director of this movie, the most significant of which was his decision to have the actors sing their parts live on set as opposed to lip synching to pre-recorded music. This may seem like an insignificant change, but it helps the film stand out from other musicals. The actors may be singing their lines, but since they’re doing it “live” they dictate the rhythm and timing of what they are singing and make it sound more like natural spoken dialogue. It also allows for far more emotional performances, which is a plus considering that Les Mis has always had a reputation of being a powerful tearjerker of a musical.


Another interesting decision that was made was to shoot most of the big musical numbers in close-up using long, uninterrupted takes. It seems like an odd choice, but it puts the focus on the performers and the emotions that their songs are supposed to convey. For example, Anne Hathaway’s much talked-about rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” probably wouldn’t be as poweful as it is had the camera not focused so closely on her. The song has always been about Fantine breaking down and losing nearly all hope, but because it’s shot in close-up we feel every bit of her pain and heartbreak. It gives the number a more intimate feeling that turns an already powerful performance into something that people will be talking about for a long time.


As for the performances themselves, they are quite good for the most part. Hugh Jackman isn’t the best singer to ever play Jean Valjean (he has to strain to hit the high notes), but he has a strong and expressive singing voice that lends itself well to the role. It also helps that he seems to be an actor first and a singer second. He seems to be more concerned with conveying emotion than with singing perfectly, and it helps him carry what is a very emotional musical. As Valjean’s adopted daughter Cosette, Amanda Seyfried reliably hits all of her high notes and is likable enough, as is Eddie Redmayne as her romantic interest, the revolutionary Marius. Samantha Barks brings a Broadway-honed singing voice to her role as Eponine, a street urchin in love with Marius. She’s easily one of the best singers in the movie, and I found her far more likable and engaging than Cosette. Meanwhile, Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter bring some much-needed comic relief as a pair of crooked innkeepers.


All of these actors are good in their roles, but the real scene stealer is Anne Hathaway as Fantine. She actually has little screen time compared to many of the other characters, but to say that she leaves her mark is an understatement. Everything she does tears my heart out, and as strange as it sounds I’m kind of glad that she makes an early exit from the movie. I found myself caring for her enough to want her suffering to end, even if that means seeing her die in a hospital bed. She really is that good, and the fact that she can convey such deep sadness and despair while singing and hitting every note is pretty damn incredible.


The only real complaint that I have about this movie is that I didn’t care much for Russell Crowe’s Inspector Javert, which is a shame because Javert was my favorite part of both live performances of the stage show that I’ve seen. To me, Javert should have a menacingly deep baritone voice and an intensity that borders on psychosis. Valjean spends the better part of two decades running from him, and I like to think that part of the reason is because he’s a little afraid of the guy. Javert is scary in his fanaticism and single-mindedness, and that should be conveyed with an intense performance that demands the audience’s attention. Sadly, Russell Crowe doesn’t deliver the goods. Instead of being frighteningly intense, he just comes across as too nice, a little weary and too boring. Plus, his singing voice isn’t anything special. It’s pleasant enough and he does manage to stay on key, but any actor who plays Javert needs to do more than that.


Yes, Russell Crowe is a little weak as the story’s villain, but fortunately it isn’t enough to ruin the movie. Overall, the film version of Les Mis manages to hit most of the emotional highs and lows that the stage version does. I’m not sure I’d recommend it to those who don’t like big epic-length musicals, but die-hard Les Mis fans should be pleased.

The Amazing Spider-man: A Review

When I heard that the Spider-man film franchise was being rebooted, I wasn’t happy.  Not only is Sam Raimi’s Spider-man trilogy not even ten years old, but it was actually good.  Sure, Spider-man 3 wasn’t as good as the first two, but I don’t think it was a bad movie.  I certainly didn’t think it was any justification to start over with a reboot so soon.  I could’ve seen a reboot in ten years, but not now.

That’s what I was telling myself when The Amazing Spider-man was first announced.  I had no interest in it, and figured it was just following the current trend of rebooting stalled or failed movie franchises.  After all, the recent reboots for Batman, James Bond and Star Trek all made a ton of money, so why not Spider-man?  Never mind that the last Spider-man movie came out just five years ago.

I started to change my mind about the concept when I saw the trailers though.  Andrew Garfield looked like a great Peter Parker, and while the movie looked darker than the Raimi Films it also looked exciting.  I was intrigued, so I decided to check it out for myself at a midnight showing last night.

It’s been said that The Amazing Spider-man borrows a lot from Christopher Nolan’s Batman films with its darker tone and attempts to ground the movie in reality.  In fact, it’s been said so often that it’s almost a cliche by now.  A lot of hack critics love to compare new movies to whatever is popular at the time, and I’m sure I could find a review that describes this movie as The Avengers meets The Dark Knight.  As much as I hate to think that I’m stooping to the level of a hack film critic, I have to say that this movie’s comparison to the Nolan Batman films isn’t entirely inappropriate.  It’s darker in that Spider-man starts out as an angry, vengeance-driven vigilante obsessed with finding his uncle’s killer, and it’s more grounded in reality in that the action scenes feel more realistic than those in Raimi’s films.  This sounds pretty horrible for a movie about Spider-man, a character that’s supposed to be fantastic and fun, but it’s better in execution than it is on paper.  Yes, Spider-man starts out wanting to find his uncle’s killer, but he soon learns that he should be using his powers to help people instead of just beating up thugs.  It’s how he learns the lesson of great power and great responsibility here; he has the power to help people, so it’s his responsibility to do just that.  It allows him to grow as a character in a way that wasn’t apparent in the earlier films.  As for the action scenes, they look more realistic this time around.  When we see Spider-man swinging through the city or flipping around during fight scenes, it looks like it’s actually happening.  I’m sure there was no small amount of CGI used, but at least it’s more convincing that a lot of CGI we’ve seen in previous Spider-man movies..  It feels organic.  I believed that what I was seeing was really happening when before I felt like I was watching a cartoon or video game. A visually impressive cartoon or video game, but a cartoon or video game all the same.

The rest of the movie worked just fine for me, although it’s not perfect.  It’s basically a retelling of Spider-man’s origin story.  This time around, Peter Parker is a quirky yet charming loner instead of an awkward nerd.  He’s still bitten by a mutated spider, but this time it happens when he’s snooping around the mysterious laboratory where his deceased father used to work.  His beloved Uncle Ben still gets killed by someone he could’ve stopped.  He still becomes a hero, but it’s a slower progression in which he goes from being a maskless vigilante to a masked vigilante to a full-blown superhero who realizes that he should be helping people in need instead of just beating up criminals.  Like I said before, it gives Peter a logical and smart character arc that is totally believable.

Speaking of Peter Parker, I can’t write a review of this movie without mentioning Andrew Garfield’s excellent portrayal of the character.  He’s odd and quirky, but also very sweet and charming.  He has moments of angst, but he never gets too dark.  He can be very funny, especially when he goes into full Spider-man mode and tosses quips left and right (something that was sorely lacking in Raimi’s films).  He’s incredibly likable, and he carries the movie well.  He also has great chemistry with Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy.  Both Garfield and Stone come off as awkward, smitten teenagers, and they have exactly the kind of relationship a good coming-of-age teenage drama needs.

Unfortunately, this movie isn’t perfect.  First of all, I didn’t feel that Uncle Ben’s death carried as much weight as it should have.  It felt a little like he was killed off just because that’s how the story goes.  Uncle Ben has to die in a Spider-man origin story, just like Krypton has to explode in a Superman origin story, and Bruce Wayne’s parents have to be murdered in a Batman story.  It’s too integral to Spider-man’s origin not to be included.  Ben’s actual death scene is handled well enough, but the rest of the movie treats it almost as an afterthought.  We get a couple of scenes of Peter angsting about it and a revenge subplot that gets dropped as soon as Peter figures out what his true calling is, but that’s about it.  Uncle Ben’s presence should be felt throughout the movie even after he’s killed, yet when it’s finally brought up again towards the end I found myself thinking, “Oh yeah, that’s right, his uncle died,” as if it was a minor footnote in the script.  The loss of a beloved father figure should have a greater impact than that.

Another complaint that I have is that the villain is uninteresting.  Rhys Ifans plays Curt Connors and the Lizard well enough, but I never really bought into the character.  He starts out as a benevolent scientist wanting to do something to help humanity, but after injecting himself with a serum and turning into a giant lizard creature he almost immediately becomes a mad scientist bent on "fixing" the human race with his serum.  He even has a secret lab in the sewers.  I can understand that his transformation affects his mind, but he goes from benevolent scientist to supervillain too quickly and with little motivation.  At least his fight scenes with Spider-man look cool.

There’s also some business of trying to set up a sequel by leaving some plot threads unresolved.  There are hints of an evil corporate overlord/criminal mastermind pulling everyone’s strings, and the mystery of why Peter’s parents disappeared is never resolved.  It’s fairly transparent sequel baiting that’s common in movies these days.  It’s frustrating to see in most movies, but what we’re given is intriguing enough to pique my curiosity, so I'm more willing to give it a pass this time.

Overall, I have to say that The Amazing Spider-man is a smarter and more satisfying reboot than I expected it to be.  It has its flaws, but the good outweighs the bad.  I’m not sure I like it as much as Spider-man or Spider-man 2, but it’s definitely better than Spider-man 3.  For what it’s worth, I hope it does well enough to warrant a couple of sequels.  I’d love to see where this story is headed.