When making a musical the first thing the casting team should probably find out is whether or not the leads can sing - Russell Crow's Javert may as well have been played by Shane Macgowan - lets be plane there were no stand out singers in this entire adventure - Crow was just the most noticeably bad given his characters screen time. Some critics such as Adam Lambert have suggested that instead of using live vocal they should have studio recorded. That is one suggestion I have a better one - why not cast actors who can sing? Surely that is the answer? That way it doesn't sound bad and it doesn't sound fake. Too simple I'm sure
Asides the dreadful karaoke-at-best singing the acting was all together competent with nobody really standing out in the dramatic sense. Sasha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter proved a fun duo on screen and Cohen's Fagen-esque portrayal of the Land Lord was highly amusing. That rather brings me to point - Le Miserables was supposed to be tragic yet I didn't shed a tear for any of the characters, in the whole film it seemed very few people actually died. This a film set in the backdrop of one of the most horrid periods of French history with rife starvation, disease, revolution and yet we see little in the way of pain or death asides Hathaway's. The whole production felt contrived and manipulative prompting the viewer to cry at the appropriate time - except that's not how these things work, it has to be a natural connection with the characters which just didn't exist, perhaps the medium is the problem and not the content, this may well be a film that is better seen on stage rather than the cinema. If you want to see somebody suffering and feel a connection to the character you would be hard pressed to find something better than this chap:
Les Miserables turned out to be The Mundane (which google translate reliable informs me is Les Banales in french). I'd find it hard to believe that it will stand the test of time with the other great film musicals - Sound of Music, Oliver, Singing in the Rain or in fact any of the great tear jerkers.
2 comments:
I think it as a good attempt at recreating the musical. I've always been a big fan of the musical since I was little, singing about prostitutes at the age of 8! :D
I think it becomes confused because the main singers weren't strong, they were obviously just cast because of their fame. However they then cast Eponine who played Eponine in the West End. I also thought the young Cosette was great but then was butchered by them casting Amanda Seyfriend (sp?) as the older Cosette. They could have easily got a proper West End singer to play her older role and it would have worked even better.
Its funny that you say that Cohen played the role really well because I think they could have over empasised it even more. Their personalities come out a lot more in the West End I think. There is a video of Matt Lucas singing the innkeepers song on youtube.
But yeah, I do agree with you about Russell Crowe.. he was a bit of a disappointment :\
I agree with most of what you say - essentially it was something that's already been done better. Hence my Average grading. I just felt that I was being over-manipulated to feel sentiment for people who just didn't convince me - Hathaway included. As always your comment is greatly appreciated though. I think when you consider the amount of quality films that have come out this year (Django, Flight, Silver Linings, 7 Psychopaths, the list goes on and on) its always going to be hard for a mediocre adaptation to really impress.
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