'Les Misérables' movie review

Another big Oscar contender coming to my theatres is Tom Hooper's Les Miserables, adapted from the well-known stage musical of the same name, adapted from Victor Hugo's novel of the same name. The film begins with Inspector Javert (Russel Crowe) freeing prisoner Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman). Valjean re-invents himself as a respectable mayor and decides to help factory worker / prostitute Fantine (Anne Hathaway) to provide for her daughter Cosette and falls into a stylized and epic story of love and hope. Yes, I just wrote that, because I felt like that. I was looking forward to this movie, especially being the part of my big Oscar preview (I intend to watch the show this year). I am not exactly the biggest fan of musicals, I saw a few, but enyoyed them and I also know nothing about the original Les Miserables stage musical. And its movie adaptation...has its ups and downs.

One of the ups is definitely the acting, which is just confirmed by Hugh Jackman's and Anne Hathaway's Golden Globe win and the latter's for-sure Oscar win. I'm not really sure about the singing, as I am no expert and as mentioned haven't heard anything from the original musical, but I believe they sang amazingly from my amateur point of view. Each of the actors also put a lot from emotion into their performances, which is in Hathaway's case even too much emotion, but I like her, so I think she deserves the Oscar. Pieces of the supporting cast, such as Russel Crowe, Eddie Redmayne, Samantha Barks, Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen are also good and do not let the Oscar-nominees overshadow them. All of the music and songs are great, but that is basically an 'up' of the original musical. 

Now the film has these two kinds of scenes: some are these emotional, monologuing scenes of characters singing about their feelings, and some are these spectacular, revolutionary scenes, where the actors sing from the bottom of the throats and wawe with French flags and rise for the people and such. Some of the former scenes are very good, like Hathaway's infamous I Dreamed A Dream or the Marius / Cosette / Eponine love triangle scenes, but after 2 hours and a half, which is clearly too much, they get kinda boring. I was just hoping, that this movie would have more of the latter, more of these epic scenes, which overshine with amazing costumography, make-up and set design. I truly loved the Do You Hear The People Sing and One Day More scenes, but I really expected to be more of such. More flag-wawing, more revolution and multi-singing, a battle with singing in between? 

As much as I respect Tom Hooper as a director, I was kinda unhappy with his directing here. I don't know if this is the director's or the director of photography's fault, but in those epic scenes that I loved I simply wished that they would show more of the scenery, more shots from afar and not just the faces, a cliched, but effective 360 spin maybe? Nope, even those epic scenes that I loved the most, just didn't seem fullfilled, as I just wanted to see more, more of that epicness and less of the emotional monologue. The movie could have been around half an hour shorter, as well. But still, I must admit that I really liked this movie. I basically liked it more and more I tought about and while listening to its soundtrack realized, that it deserves a higher rating than what I originally gave it. But that is my subjective view, the movie isn't for everyone - it's long, it's artsy, everything is sung - if you love musicals, you'll love it, if you hate them, you'll hate it, if you just kinda like them (like me), then it depends. In an objective conclusion, Les Miserables is a monumental, wonderfully acted, emotionally powerful and overlong movie musical.

Total rating: 8 / 10 

So what did you think of Les Miserables? Did you like it, dislike it, why? Comment below, let me know!