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Originally Posted by Rudeboyelvis
Never made it...stayed in and watched movies at home. The next day I spoke with 3 people who did go, and they all relayed a similar experience... principally that the singing, while impressive considering it was the actors performing, was noticeably lacking and would have greatly benefited from professional singers overdubbing their lines, and that Anne Hathaway was horrible (which surprised me) - so it went straight to my "wait for it on HBO" list.  |
I've seen the musical twice- once when I was 16 and then again at 22, and adored it as a teenager (a lot of teenage girls really fall in love with it) so I owned the original cast album, blah blah blah. So, I was surprised to find I didn't love it as much as I'd hoped, nor hate it as much as I expected.
I didn't love Anne Hathaway, because she did something that I just hate. There's an old saying, "Tears on stage means dry eyes in the audience" and I think it's really true.I spent "I Dreamed a Dream" thinking, "Wow. She is sure crying hard. I'm impressed she can still sing while crying so hard." I like her, but I think she's a Julia Roberts- she's just better in lighter material.
Thanks to a friend who mixed the show and got me in to see previews, I saw Hugh Jackman when he did "Back on Broadway" and he's an amazing, amazing musical theater singer/actor, but his voice is all wrong for Valjean. He gets really nasal in the higher parts, which sounds great in Rodgers & Hammerstein, but not in Les Mis. In my opinion, anyway. He had to shout "Bring Him Home" which really takes away from what the song is.
I felt like Russell Crowe was working so hard to hit all of Javert's low notes that he forgot to act. I did think he was pretty good in his last song, though.
I really, really do not like Sacha Baron Cohen and yet I thought he was AWESOME in this. I usually find the Thénardiers boring and he turned them into my favorite part of the movie. Knock me over with a feather. I think because he was one of the few actors in the film who was always trying to get or to do something, rather than just FEELING.
And the guy who played Marius was really good, even if he has a frog mouth. And the Enjolras was hot, though I think that's required in the casting for Enjolras. He can climb my barricade anytime.
The big mistake Tom Hooper made in the singing live thing, and the main reason I think you can certainly wait for HBO is that he couldn't do any big grand wide shots during the songs because... you would have seen the microphones! My sound mixer friend went with me to the movie and pointed that out as soon as the movie was over. So the cinematography is not great because it has to be all in the actors' faces the whole time.
And yet, it's Les Mis, and, even as cynical as I am, "A Little Fall of Rain" will still never NOT make me cry. Because I am a cynical sucker.
