Saw Les Mis last night. My take:
As much groaning and eyerolling I did at Anne Hathaway's version of I Dreamed a Dream from the movie trailer, I figured out that the reason why I didn't like it: the first part of the song is a little low for her vocal range - she did WAY better with the higher notes. Anything she sung after the first half of the song sounded fantastic. Solid performance.

Hugh Jackman made a good Valjean. Definitely not the best I have seen, but he held his own. Can't say the same for Russell Crowe. His voice was WAY too thin to handle Javert.

Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter actually weren't bad as the Thenardiers. They did a lot better than I expected, but I didn't have high expectations for them in the first place.

They did the right thing by casting stage actors for Enjolras, Marius, and Eponine for the movie. Marius sounded great but he looked like Howdy Doody and I couldn't get over all the spackle they put on his face in an attempt to cover his freckles. The guy who played Enjolras should have been cast as Marius. The girl who played Eponine did the role some justice. Eponine is always a crapshoot: she's either played well as the streetwise kid or she comes off as a whiner and you're glad she gets a cap busted in her at the barricade. Fortunately the movie casting was the former.

Speaking of Eponine, I was BEYOND PISSED that they cut her part from the finale. Note to Hollywood: the part of the ending before the company starts singing is sung by Eponine, Fantine, and Valjean and not just Fantine and Valjean only. That actually ruined the movie for me.

I think this is a conflict between theater expectations vs. film expectations. When you go to a Broadway show the expectation of the actors is to be able to sing perfectly and belt it to the cheap seats. In film it's a little bit different. In this clip (on YouTube) where they talk about the decision to sing live, Hathaway talks about how she felt it was selfish to sing pretty when Fantine has lost everything. The film expectation is for acting rather than perfect singing. She acted the song realistically, which is what we expect from film.

I actually liked that they cut Eponine (even though it would have sounded lovely with Sam Bark's voice in the mix). I always thought it was strange that Eponine was there with Fantine to welcome Valjean to heaven - what connection did they have in life?

While I love Eponine, that always seemed strange to me as well. The only thing I could assume was that Eponine died trying to help Marius get to Cosette.

I personally thought it was better suited for the Bishop to be there to welcome Valjean (plus to get to hear Colm Wilkinson again, yippee).

[QUOTE=Gusteau;2195699]I think this is a conflict between theater expectations vs. film expectations. When you go to a Broadway show the expectation of the actors is to be able to sing perfectly and belt it to the cheap seats. In film it's a little bit different. In this clip (on YouTube) where they talk about the decision to sing live, Hathaway talks about how she felt it was selfish to sing pretty when Fantine has lost everything. The film expectation is for acting rather than perfect singing. She acted the song realistically, which is what we expect from film.


I see your point...two very different media. I guess I kind of felt that the movie was trying too much to be an opera (if that makes sense?). I would have loved to see the actress that did Eponime (sp?) play Fantine and Hathaway do the Eponime part

It does, but if opera is what they're after, beautiful singing trumps all other considerations.

Tangent, but am I the only person who has a hard time keeping all the characters, and their names, straight? I'm good with Valjean, Javert and the Thernardiers, but after that they and their names all kind of run together for me. :o

It's been such a long time since I didn't have the entire score pretty much memorized, but I xan remember it being confusing. And I can't name any of the revoltionaries except Enjolais and Gavroche.

I think having Eponine at the end says to the viewer that she made it to heaven. I mean, i guess all the dead people did (except Javert), since they show up in the finale, but I guess they wanted to highlight Eponine.

Hypo and I saw it today. I loved every single second of it. It didn't feel long to me at all and I usually have a hard time sitting through long movies like that. I thought Anne Hathaway's acting was superb.

I liked the close up face shots. It brought even more emotion to the story because it was so well acted.

I will be buying that one for sure. So intense. So well done :) (I'm not a music officionado so some of the differences some of you noticed are things I can't even really hear!)