Film Review - Les Miserables
Jan. 1st, 2013 01:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
colorlessgreenideas- Anna Hathaway impresses me more and more every time I see her in something. Her singing is breathtaking, she oozes emotion at all the right times, and she's gorgeous even when she's bloody and filthy and miserable. It will be an interesting switch for me to make whenever I finally watch her as Catwoman.
- Sasha Baron Cohen as the Innkeeper was perfect. It never would have occurred to me to cast him until I saw him in the part. Brilliant.
- The only actor who underwhelmed me was Russell Crowe. He wasn't bad, but the emotional range of his singing just stayed in a sort of safe range, without hitting any high or low notes as it should have. Maybe he was focusing on hitting the notes and couldn't manage to emote, or maybe I'm missing some subtlety. Or, I'm just really used to the guy who played Javier in the well-known London production, which I have the soundtrack for. On the other hand, the same could be said for every other character, and no one else left me feeling wanting like Russell Crowe did.
- Speaking of Javier, I did think it was interesting how a man whose life revolves around "honesty" found it so easy to become a spy. Sure, it worked towards his own end, but it seemed a little out of character.
- Romantic moral of the story: givin the choice of a "boyish" brunette who's familiar, adoring, and willing to go the extra mile, the object of affection will instead go for the very feminine blonde he or she has just met. I'm so not bitter. But yeah, I might've teared up during "On My Own."
- Speaking of Marius and Cosette. Even though I knew what was going to happen, I half-expected him to drop her after the whole ordeal at the barricades. All of his friends are dead, he's realized that not only was Eponine in love with him, but she died for him, and he was on the edge of death himself. He saw a child killed by soldiers, and felt the rest of the city abandon their cause. That's some serious mental baggage, and Cosette's wanting to just pick up where they left off after a brief conversation and some lusting after each other. I know it would've gone against the romantic feel of the story, but I think it would've been more realistic for him to reconsider, or at least take some time before jumping into the lust again. But maybe he did, and the movie just skipped over all that.
- Sasha Baron Cohen as the Innkeeper was perfect. It never would have occurred to me to cast him until I saw him in the part. Brilliant.
- The only actor who underwhelmed me was Russell Crowe. He wasn't bad, but the emotional range of his singing just stayed in a sort of safe range, without hitting any high or low notes as it should have. Maybe he was focusing on hitting the notes and couldn't manage to emote, or maybe I'm missing some subtlety. Or, I'm just really used to the guy who played Javier in the well-known London production, which I have the soundtrack for. On the other hand, the same could be said for every other character, and no one else left me feeling wanting like Russell Crowe did.
- Speaking of Javier, I did think it was interesting how a man whose life revolves around "honesty" found it so easy to become a spy. Sure, it worked towards his own end, but it seemed a little out of character.
- Romantic moral of the story: givin the choice of a "boyish" brunette who's familiar, adoring, and willing to go the extra mile, the object of affection will instead go for the very feminine blonde he or she has just met. I'm so not bitter. But yeah, I might've teared up during "On My Own."
- Speaking of Marius and Cosette. Even though I knew what was going to happen, I half-expected him to drop her after the whole ordeal at the barricades. All of his friends are dead, he's realized that not only was Eponine in love with him, but she died for him, and he was on the edge of death himself. He saw a child killed by soldiers, and felt the rest of the city abandon their cause. That's some serious mental baggage, and Cosette's wanting to just pick up where they left off after a brief conversation and some lusting after each other. I know it would've gone against the romantic feel of the story, but I think it would've been more realistic for him to reconsider, or at least take some time before jumping into the lust again. But maybe he did, and the movie just skipped over all that.
