tvdinner&amovie

I’m not going to pretend that I was excited to see this movie; or that I even thought the movie would be amazing. I came into this movie with very low standards. And you know what they say: Those who are pessimistic are either proven right or pleasantly surprised. Both proved to be true.

While some singers and songs were better than I hoped, overall, the slight changes they made, I did not appreciate at all. The largest ones I saw came, quite disappointingly, during my favorite songs.

I Dreamed A Dream: I have not hidden my dislike of Anne Hathaway from anyone. Sure, sometimes she’s a great actress. Other times it’s so painful I wince when I hear her voice. Luckily, this was not one of those times. She was definitely one of the best actors—and singers!—of the movie.

In My Life/A Heart Full of Love: This is one of my favorite trio songs. Unfortunately, the singers did not do it justice. If you saw the 25th Anniversary of Les Mis, then you know that Samantha Barks can sing. On screen, she was slightly less impressive–but I still liked her more than Amanda Seyfried. Seyfried’s voice is so high that Redmayne and Barks are also forced to sing high–too high for all of them–which means a loss of power behind their voices. Also, Amanda Seyfried doesn’t sing–she trills. Is there a more annoying sound than someone trilling? Someone half-heartedly speak-talking. Other than that, no.

ABC Café/Red & Black: This was one of my favorite songs of the entire movie. I would say that the emotion behind this song—as seen by the very close camera—is one of the highlights. It was also when it became apparent that, when not singing with Sefried, queen of trilling, Redmayne could sing!

My favorite line from this song–and from the entire movie? “It is time for us all to decide who we are. Do we fight for a right at the Opera, now? Have you asked of yourselves what is the price you might pay?” (Linked is the better, 25th Anniversary Version)

Drink With Me: All of the main lines were taken out. Because they cut it down to be about a minute long, all of the dialogue—the men debating whether going to war is the right thing to do, and their reminiscing about the good times they used to have been cut out. Even stranger; they took out all the women in the song. Where the back-up singers used to be women singing to their men, in the movie it is young Gavroche soloing. While this is a nice sentiment, the lack of interaction between the men and women is apparent. Because of this, it took away from the effect the movie could have had when the women are cleaning up the pools of blood on the ground after the battle.

A Heart Full of Love Reprise: This trio was so disappointing that I almost cried—which would have been the only time my eyes would have watered during the movie. In the play, the lyrics begin with Cosette and Marius talking about Mauris’ healing. This is a great song because, typically, it switches between duets and trios—starring Cosette, Marius and Valjean. Instead, they take out almost all of Maruis’s lyrics and turn it into a quartet, with a random man standing on the stairs. Do we know who the stairs man is? Do we ever see him again? Is it ever explained why he is singing with them? No. (Sidenote: There is no link for this song, because it was so horrible they decided not to add it to the album. This is a fact.)Empty Chairs at Empty Tables: I’ve already talked about the setting of this song; but Redmayne’s singing mostly acapella was a very nice touch. This was my favorite song of the entire play. This is also the only song I would spend money on and buy. Additionally, one of my favorite singers was Eddie Redmayne. It probably would have been Anne Hathaway, but she was only in the first half hour or so. Give me Redmayne sans Seyfreid! Both he and Hathaway are also the only actors who can talk-sing.

Talk-Singing:
This was easily one of the largest problems. It was more than clear that Hugh Jackman got tired of talk-singing halfway through the movie and simply gave up. He looked to be in pain–and I was in pain from hearing him. Just because they talk-sing all the lines in the play doesn’t mean you have to do so in the movie. And the lines of emphasis in the play weren’t even sung with power, or triumphantly. You’ve either got to get all the lines sung, or don’t talk-sing. And only Samantha Barks, Anne Hathaway, and Eddie Redmayne could successfully talk-sing. Everyone else just meandered along. I’m sure it wasn’t fun for the actors–and it wasn’t at all fun for my ears.

Epilogue: You can just tell that Hugh Jackman is tired of singing. He went from singing and talk-singing to just speaking the lyrics! They also changed the lyrics from:
It’s a story of those who always loved you
Your mother gave her life for you and gave you to my keeping
To: Of one who turned from hating
A man who only learned to love when you were in his keeping

I don’t care if these new lyrics have better symbolism. You’ve thrown symbolism in our face the entire movie.

Anne Hathaway was great; however, they deleted Samantha Barks’ entire section, turning the famous duet into a slightly-more-boring solo. Horrible. I did enjoy the priest’s little part.

Fun Facts/Favorite Things:
-The priest was played by the original Jean Valjean from Broadway. No wonder his voice was so good. And what wonderful homage!
-My favorite singer of the entire movie: leader of the National Guard (who sang for about 30 seconds) was Hadley Fraser, who played Marius, Grantiere, and Javert on Broadway. In the 25th Anniversary, he plays Grantiere.
-And as much as I did not enjoy the changes they made, I did like the larger role Gavroche was given. Especially touching was Javert’s putting his badge of honor on a deceased Gavroche.
-I also really enjoyed the action scenes—particularly setting up the barricade; getting chairs and furniture in any way possible. Including kissing women to steal their seats. There’s no sitting during war–especially when that chair will help build a fort!

Biggest Disappointment: Samantha Barks. As previously mentioned, she killed it at the 25th Anniversary. I’m not sure if that was just because she was singing with Nick Jonas or what, but in the movie she was almost like a different, less interesting person. And despite all that, she was still one of the best singers, in my opinion.

Favorite songs: Red & Black, Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, Finale
Best singers: Eddie Redmayne (despite his “Kermit-esque” voice when hitting high notes), Anne Hathaway, Hadley Fraser, Samantha Barks, Aaron Tveit
Best performance: Red & Black, Empty Chairs, Finale

Worst song:
Bring Him Home: This is a song I would pay never to hear again. You can tell that Hugh Jackman hates this song—and I hate his rendition of it.

Worst singers:
Russell Crowe: His best performance was the song before he killed himself. And I still disliked that one.

Hugh Jackman: He started out pretty good, but then it all went downhill. I don’t understand—he was good on Broadway as Curly from Oklahoma. Maybe the moral of this story is don’t turn plays into movies, because they don’t turn out well.

Amanda Seyfried: She has the honor of being in both of the worst plays-turned-into-movies ever: Mama Mia and Les Mis. Just because you can shriek doesn’t mean you should sing—or trill.

I feel like the direction started out pretty strong—but Hooper started leading everyone in contradictory directions, and it did not turn out well. I don’t know where this movie went wrong, but I can stay without a doubt that I would be entirely happy never seeing this movie ever again. The play, on the other hand, is an entirely different story.

-Please note that clicking on the titles will take you to the song on youtube.
-Also note that I would prefer that you listen to this: the entire 25th Anniversary with Ramin (black vest; later red coat), Hadley (green shirt), and Alfie (white shirt, or Jean Valjean), who should have been in the movie. Also, here are much better versions of Red & Black (which sounds awesome, despite Nick Jonas), Drink With Me, In My Life.
-Lastly, I did not review all of the songs, even though there were several that were more famous than the ones I chose. Many songs had been entirely deleted, or were pretty boring. For it to be on this particular list, the song had to be exceptionally awesome—or horribly bad. There is probably more of the latter than the former.

Overall: 7/10
Singing: 6/10
Videography: 6.5/10
Acting: 8/10
Plot: n/a

I’m going to say it straightout: I think one of the biggest problems with this movie is the demographic. Who is it supposed to appeal to? If you’ve seen the play, saying that this is a disappointment is justified and probably correct. And it is not a pleasurable experience for those to those who have never read or watched Les Mis before.

In addition, the choices made for this film are seemingly contradictory. If you want big names to boost the popularity, fine. That makes sense. But don’t expect them to sing live and sound up-to-Broadway par. Sure, they sounded okay–some sounded even good. But amazing? stellar? mindblowing? I think not. Either sing in a studio to help boost and “fluff” up the voices, or get amazing singers and record them singing live.

Plot:
From what I could tell, the plot was almost exactly the same as the play I saw. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing–but isn’t necessarily a good thing, either. It is understandable that a play’s setting and scenery is limited; they have a small amount of space to work with, and precious seconds to change everything around. This, however, is a multi-million dollar movie. And it is quite evident that the effects of the movie were done in green screen. There were two vastly different kinds of camera work in this movie–regal, sweeping camera angles, which was the bird’s eye viewing of France, and the “two inches from the singer’s face” angle. The bird’s eye was clearly CGI–all of it. And, while pretty, was a bit jarring at times. I’m almost positive is was only used as a device to help transition the changing time periods.

I will say, that despite its ridiculous, unrealistic quality, I did like the camerawork following Jean Valjean’s ripped up letter toward France. And the battalions marching through the streets to reach the “barricade.”

A larger, more annoying problem with the camera-work can be found with the singers. Hooper–and the actors–are loving their “singing live” bit. We all know it. They’ve said it thousands of times, everywhere. But is that really something to be bragging about when it has drastically lowered the vocal qualities found in the movie? More about that later–back to the cameras. I felt no need to be that close to the actors while they were singing. Especially since that was the camera-work for easily over 75% of the movie. However, also jarring was when the actors were moving around and singing. Most of the time, the camera was very jarring and couldn’t even keep the actor’s face in the middle of the camera–or even on camera!

Two of my favorite parts in the play were translated much differently in the movie: Javert’s death, and “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables.” Javert’s death, in the play, was very impressive. As he jumped off the bridge, the ground moved up, swallowing him instead of him falling under the stage. In the movie, that was the funniest thing I have ever seen. Russell Crowe is sad, he’s standing on a bridge. Will he jump–will the jump kill him? He jumps into the shipyard, partially filled with water. But is it clear if the 300+ foot fall will kill him? We all know how implied messages are often ignored; let’s shove the answer down the audience’s throat. Cue the loudest sound of a back hitting cement and breaking I have ever heard. More realistic sound effects can be found in the Scary Movie series.

I also did not like the theme of “Russell Crowe walking on the ledge of things while half-heartedly singing.” My aunt* pointed out that at the beginning he walks confidently, unafraid of death. And at the end he tiptoes, scared, and commits suicide. While the parallels are more evident in the movie, as they have once again shoved the symbolism down your throat, it is also clear that the green screen work is exactly the same for the two parts.

And while I sincerely enjoyed “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables,” it being one of my favorite songs in the movie, a large majority of its impressiveness was lost when my brother reminded me of the scene in the play. In the play it is completely dark, with the exception of candles which are held by all of Marius’s friends, standing behind him. When the song ends, their candles are blown out and he is left alone on the stage.

Acting:
The biggest appeal, for me, was seeing the actors’ faces up close. (Sidenote: If they had panned back from the faces a bit, we still would have been able to clearly see their faces. But more about that later). When you compare professional actors to singers, or actors to Broadway members, it’s evident in the movie who came from what background. The background people, whose faces the camera did not zoom in on, were the Broadway members. I would have preferred more entire body acting rather than watching just their face. I’m not denying that Hooper did a great job of capturing the emotion on the actors’ faces while they sang and cried. But if he had stepped about ten feet back when filming the singers, he could have easily accommodated the Broadway members and “real” singers.

In no way am I denying the stellar actors’ stellar acting jobs–but let’s not get carried away and call them singers. The actors–who happened to be reasonably good at singing–included Anne Hathaway (I Dreamed A Dream), Eddie Redmayne (Empty Chairs at Empty Tables), and the cast for ABC Cafe/Red and Black.

In my opinion, this was filmed as a movie-musical, and the music was the largest component of this film–clearly it wasn’t the original plot. As such, I have a lot of things to say about Hooper’s musical choices, the changes in lyrics made, and an even closer look at the actors’ singing abilities. Because who doesn’t like bashing on the Gladiator’s singing? We are not entertained. Or, as The Onion put it, “Russell Crowe Praised For Stunning Portrayal Of Man Who Cannot Sing Or Act In ‘Les Misérables’.

This Review/Rant will continue in part two, where I will discuss musical choices, changes in lyrics and surprisingly good–and disappointingly bad–actors’ singing abilities.

*If family members show up in this post, it is because I saw it with my entire extended family. We then proceeded to break the movie apart scene by scene for the next several hours.