This is one post I have to put on my flame-retardant suit! Even though I\u2019ve heard the musicals, I\u2019ve never seen the stage versions nor had an inclination to \u2013 and it\u2019s only because apart from the odd well-known and catchy number here and there from well-known musicals, I dislike them in general. I find the music too much in-your-face with little of the subtleties, whether in the lyrics or the musical textures, that I can easily find in classical operas.<\/p>\n
Still, whenever the first reviews of Tom Hooper\u2019s Les Mis\u00e9rables<\/em> are all putting in bets for the filmed musical to sweep this coming year\u2019s academy awards, I decided to give it a go over the long holiday weekend, out of curiosity if nothing else.<\/p>\n 2.5 hours later after the experience, my opinion of musicals remain unchanged: Ling loved it, but I disliked it. To be fair, the film\u2019s visuals were suitably epic. The slums of 19th century Paris are re-created beautifully; even the near-end scene taking place in the sewers looked so real it made Ling cringe and feel real bad for actors who had to wallow in it (I had to remind her it was all made-believe). That a good portion of visuals were computer-generated was obvious too, though I assumed that stylization was intentional. And Sacha Baron Cohen\u2019s turn as the scheming and greedy Th\u00e9nardier brings to mind the years I enjoyed his performance as Ali G.<\/p>\n But then again, apart from Anne Hathaway (Fantine) and maybe Hugh Jackman (Valjean) at a couple of spots, I thought the rest of the main cast\u2019s singing just awful to my ears. Amanda Seyfried\u2019s (Cosette) voice was too lightweight, and Russell Crowe (Javert) sounded like he was straining at every near high note. And the director seemed to have an obsession with camera close-ups, not to mention weird camera angles. At nearly every solo number, you\u2019ll find the camera literally in the actor\u2019s face, with foreheads and necks frequently cropped off in the frame. When I have to purchase the inevitable Blu-ray for Ling later, I guess I could occupy myself counting the number of nostril hairs Crowe has in all those close-ups. The film felt like a relentless assault on my senses – might had been all that continuous non-stop singing – that I switched off and was struggling to stay awake. It got so bad that I switched on my iPad and fiddling with it, and in the darkness of the theater annoyed Ling who got distracted even by the tablet\u2019s dimmed display LOL.<\/p>\n