Les Misérables

Le genre musical est le seul qui me reste en travers de la gorge (à l’exception de Moulin Rouge !), donc mon jugement est très subjectif. Je prends toujours mon mal en patience pendant les passages chantés, ceux-ci étant la pilule à avaler entre les dialogues. Sauf qu’ici, ils forment 99 % des cent soixante minutes du métrage et ne sont pas toujours interprétés par des acteurs qui savent chanter (Crowe). Pour moi, c’était un calvaire auquel j’ai survécu grâce à la grande qualité de la scénographie et de la photographie, lesquelles donnent à l’ensemble plus de relief que dans la plupart des films en 3D. (13/01/2013)

After the mixed responses to Hooper’s Les Misérables from both American and Czech critics, I was convinced I would hate it with all my heart and I went to the cinema basically as an obligation. But I did well because Les Misérables enchanted and emotionally disarmed me. At the beginning my resistance was still successful, but it took about three songs for me to dive into the story, and I really enjoyed the rest of the movie. Overall, I think this musical conception was a very interesting experience: there’s filth and realism, on one side, and a display of musical performances and singing on the other… a very interesting experience. For me it’s more interesting and bolder than the over-hyped The King's Speech, I can’t reproach Tom Hooper (and before the première I though Les Misérables was a cowardly safe bet.). 9/10 (15/01/2013)

Three hours of singing about how people have a hard life or how they're not loved. The camera's ten inches from their faces and it's raining. Three hours! (26/12/2012)

A world where there is no place left for searching for mistakes or inaccuracies. Les Misérables by Hooper is filled with emotions, captivating performances, and breathtaking production to the very edge. And when I suffer with Fantine, search with Javert, or cry with Éponine, there is no defense against the resulting enthusiasm. The stunning finale resonates in every sense almost relentlessly. (24/01/2013)

Well. Not that I don't enjoy a good musical, but I’ll definitely pass this emotional close-up study of suffering faces next time. The production design is great, the actors are focused, but what good is that when... (17/03/2019)

Suffering. It is solid craftsmanship with excellent production design, where inexperienced viewers will say, “this was a truly valuable and artistic film after a long time”. The qualities are debatable, but not due to my dislike for the genre. Not even Russel Crowe and Hugh Jackman singing can save it, no matter how good they were in their roles. Throughout the film, I had the impression that if there was no singing, it would have been a considerably better experience. (27/01/2013)

Honestly, it took a lot of effort to make it through the final hour, so tediously drawn out was the last "revolutionary" act. Yet the film didn't start off badly at all. For the first twenty minutes I was getting used to the singing and learning not to expect the spoken word, but I quite liked the next hour or so (especially Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter were great) and Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe were the perfect choice for acting and singing. But the ending(s)... I don't know the original musical, so I had no idea how long any song would be, and so with Javert's finale came the real hell (in my mind I was thinking: "Now! Come on! Now!" and it didn't, the next verse came) and the very end made the hell even hotter. Two and a half. (02/11/2014)

"Les Misérables" is truly a beautiful musical, which is the main reason why it has stayed on theater stages for so long. We also have a Czech version, which I had the pleasure of seeing. I must say that I was captivated by the musical and was looking forward to the film version with an interesting cast. I had heard Anne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman, and Amanda Seyfried sing, but I had doubts about Russell Crowe. Although my opinion of him as an actor changed after the movies "A Beautiful Mind" and "A Labyrinth of Lies," I couldn't believe that he could sing. However, I placed my trust in Tom Hooper, whose film "The King's Speech" dazzled not only me. Moreover, this is material that can be transformed into a truly magnificent spectacle. After the first few minutes, I thought that I would get exactly that kind of spectacle. The grandiose opening at the gala was truly magnificent, and I expected the rest of the film to be the same. Unfortunately, I didn't get that at all. It suddenly turned into one and a half hours of suffering, as I survived from one musical number to the next. Hugh Jackman was to blame for that. His voice didn't impress me at all, but an even bigger problem was Tom Hooper's treatment of the song "I Dreamed a Dream." Such a beautiful and emotional song was poorly filmed and poorly sung, turning it into just another piece in a flood of individual songs. The biggest mistake lay in Hooper's choice of mostly good actors who are not professional singers. It's nice that they sang it directly during filming and didn't dub the songs in the studio, but even though it shows their abilities, it also emphasizes the fact that they simply aren't singers and are weak in that regard. This applies to both women in leading roles and to Jackman. The biggest surprise was "Russell Crowe," of course, who sang his parts absolutely brilliantly. His voice is wonderfully strong. When he started singing his four lines in the song "One Day More," I got goosebumps. This song was one of the greatest experiences of the film, exactly as colossal as I imagined the whole film to be. Then it came to the barricades, and the film became more than bearable, but that simply cannot excuse the first hour and a half. Non-singers being focused on in great detail, the music being muffled or missing completely, this is not a well-thought-out move. If the actors receive any awards for this, it still ruins the overall impression of the film for me. Russell Crowe was excellent, the actors were good, but the execution was simply not handled well. Just as "Anna Karenina" was knocked down, Hooper also managed to knock down "Les Misérables." It's not bad, but damn it, it could have been so much better. More: http://www.filmovy-denik.cz/2013/01/tobruk-valcik-s-basirem-2-dny-v-new.html (04/03/2013)