{"id":1928,"date":"2013-02-19T19:17:44","date_gmt":"2013-02-20T00:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinemacrazed.wordpress.com\/?p=1928"},"modified":"2013-02-19T19:17:44","modified_gmt":"2013-02-20T00:17:44","slug":"les-miserables-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/19\/les-miserables-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Les Mis\u00e9rables (2012)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Sadly, I’ve never been to the iconic musical of “Les Miserables,” nor have I ever seen any of the previous adaptations of the Victor Hugo novel. I’ve also never read the novel. In actuality the most I’ve ever seen or known about “Les Miserables” is through an episode of “Animaniacs” where a condensed version of the musical was adapted through animated cats and dogs. When you’re through laughing at me, I like to think that not being knowledgeable about the material gives me somewhat of a different perspective. I’ve seen fans of the musical bash the film for missing the point, and vice versa. As for my thoughts on Tom Hooper’s 2012 adaptation, director Tom Hooper’s adaptation of Victor Hugo’s novel is an often breathtaking and compelling bit of epic musical that kept me considerably compelled and entertained from the moment it began.<\/p>\n

Typically modern musical presentations fail to impress, but director Hooper manages to evoke many emotions of pain and turmoil with every character, and it helps that the cast commits to their roles with great zeal. Hugh Jackman is given the task of carrying the role of Jean Valjean and gives a very spirited and memorable performance as the flawed hero who learns about mercy and charity throughout the duration of the story, and provides stunning renditions of the musicals numbers with a zeal that’s admirable and breathtaking. Jackman is a noted Broadway performer, and he brings much of that flair and charismatic showmanship with his performance as Valjean, bringing much of the passionate journey to the forefront and giving us an anti-hero we can really root for and experience many a turmoil with. Rivaling Jackman’s performance is Anne Hathaway who, as the tortured worker Fantine, is marvelous.<\/p>\n

Hathaway gives the performance of her career, as this skeletal and sickly woman who spends most of the story working for a better future, and can never quite obtain it. Her performance of “I Dreamed a Dream” manages to be the most memorable and incredible solo of the film, as she offers an embittered and desperate plea for happiness that becomes the more iconic moment of Hooper’s interpretation. Sadly, while Crowe does in fact offer a valuable antithesis to Jackman’s more polished Valjean, Crowe really does bog the musical down with his often nasal and flat vocals that never quite help any of the performances he partakes in. Crowe often seems to struggle to deliver vocals that can match Jackman’s and never quite matches up to his, in the end.<\/p>\n

Crowe’s attempts to wail throughout the film can be distracting, and when matched against the more interesting performers like Amanda Seyfried, or even Sasha Baron Cohen, he is sub-par at best. “Les Miserables” is a fascinating and very grueling story and one that provides much heart and soul behind its tale of war and bloodshed, and as a newcomer to this legacy, I appreciated director Hooper’s efforts, in spite of its flaws. Though minor flaws keep “Les Miserables” from being a true masterpiece, director Tom Hooper’s interpretation is riveting and incredibly entertaining with marvelous performances from the cast, including Hugh Jackman, and Anne Hathaway, both of whom push themselves to the limit and steal the show.<\/p>\n

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Buy It Now!<\/a><\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sadly, I’ve never been to the iconic musical of “Les Miserables,” nor have I ever seen any of the previous adaptations of the Victor Hugo novel. I’ve also never read the novel. In actuality the most I’ve ever seen or known about “Les Miserables” is through an episode of “Animaniacs” where a condensed version of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[240,302,590,700,840,874,1173],"class_list":["post-1928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-crime","tag-drama","tag-l","tag-musical","tag-revenge","tag-romance","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1928\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}