I totally agree w/ JaxDad: There should have been a third option, although I would have just called it "Other."
I thought the film was phenomenal on many fronts, from the amazing direction (Tom Hooper, who directed "The King's Speech" and "Elizabeth I" (the mini-series) is clearly great at capturing time and place...) I loved the camera angles, the sets, costumes, etc which really gave you a feeling of being trasported into the early 1800s. The opening scene was stunning, seeming like a DeMille scene with a "cast of thousands." So from the beginning you felt more involved than you might have been seeing the musical on stage.
The acting was exception, amazing, stunning, no small feat since Hooper's tight camera shots really meant that you felt every nuance of emotion coming at you. If there was a note of falseness in the acting, you would have felt it immediately.
But I found it sad that once again a production of a film musical relied on A-list actors rather than going back to some of the hard-working (and paid so much less) theater actors on Broadway and the West End. I liked that Hooper had the actors sing their songs live rather than recording them in a studio and having them mime the scenes later; this really made for a realism and grittiness that stood out. However, because of this, some of the actors' inability to sing well also stood out. Although Samantha Banks and Eddie Redmayne were phenomenal, both in their singing and acting, the leads were mostly strong in their acting and lacking in the vocal arena. Their voices all sounded strained at times, and Amanda Seyfried and Hugh Jackman's vibratos were seriously annoying. The person who sounded the most "acceptable was Anne Hathaway, partly because she was crying through half her songs... But Seyfried? Come ON! She's great in "Mamma Mia" and "Letters to Juliet," but there are a million young women who have played or are playing Cosette on Broadway or in the West End productions (or touring productions!) that could have acted and sung circles around her and would have been just as pretty.
Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter were fun as the Thenardiers, although their masterful comic acting didn't surprise me. (Thank god for a little comic relief in that movie!)
I agree w/ JaxDad about that added song, "Suddenly." It didn't hold a candle to their previous compositions, although I thought the other music they added during the film (background) was important to sew together various scenes. It would have been strange to have asked other composers to do that....
JaxDad - 11 years ago
There should be a third option: better than I was anticipating. As a die-hard Les Mis fan, I was super excited to see this. Then, bad reviews starting trickling in and I became really anxious that I would love it simply because I had decided to love it before I ever saw a single frame, but deep down, I would know it wasn't really good. So, I went in expecting to be disappointed, but looking for great moments to hang my admiration on. Going in with really low expectations, I was floored by how powerful it was. You still can't beat the stage show for sheer talent and the experience of hearing it live, but the close-ups allowed for an intimacy with the characters that the stage show doesn't. I was blown away. It was by no means perfect and I thought the choices in the changes were totally unnecessary (or at worst, painful - looking at you, new song "Suddenly"), but man, when it was on (which was far more often than not), it was killer.
JaxDad - 11 years ago
There should be a third option: better than I was anticipating. As a die-hard Les Mis fan, I was super excited to see this. Then, bad reviews starting trickling in and I became really anxious that I would love it simply because I had decided to love it before I ever saw a single frame, but deep down, I would know it wasn't really good. So, I went in expecting to be disappointed, but looking for great moments to hang my admiration on. Going in with really low expectations, I was floored by how powerful it was. You still can't beat the stage show for sheer talent and the experience of hearing it live, but the close-ups allowed for an intimacy with the characters that the stage show doesn't. I was blown away. It was by no means perfect and I thought the choices in the changes were totally unnecessary (or at worst, painful - looking at you, new song "Suddenly"), but man, when it was on (which was far more often than not), it was killer.
I totally agree w/ JaxDad: There should have been a third option, although I would have just called it "Other."
I thought the film was phenomenal on many fronts, from the amazing direction (Tom Hooper, who directed "The King's Speech" and "Elizabeth I" (the mini-series) is clearly great at capturing time and place...) I loved the camera angles, the sets, costumes, etc which really gave you a feeling of being trasported into the early 1800s. The opening scene was stunning, seeming like a DeMille scene with a "cast of thousands." So from the beginning you felt more involved than you might have been seeing the musical on stage.
The acting was exception, amazing, stunning, no small feat since Hooper's tight camera shots really meant that you felt every nuance of emotion coming at you. If there was a note of falseness in the acting, you would have felt it immediately.
But I found it sad that once again a production of a film musical relied on A-list actors rather than going back to some of the hard-working (and paid so much less) theater actors on Broadway and the West End. I liked that Hooper had the actors sing their songs live rather than recording them in a studio and having them mime the scenes later; this really made for a realism and grittiness that stood out. However, because of this, some of the actors' inability to sing well also stood out. Although Samantha Banks and Eddie Redmayne were phenomenal, both in their singing and acting, the leads were mostly strong in their acting and lacking in the vocal arena. Their voices all sounded strained at times, and Amanda Seyfried and Hugh Jackman's vibratos were seriously annoying. The person who sounded the most "acceptable was Anne Hathaway, partly because she was crying through half her songs... But Seyfried? Come ON! She's great in "Mamma Mia" and "Letters to Juliet," but there are a million young women who have played or are playing Cosette on Broadway or in the West End productions (or touring productions!) that could have acted and sung circles around her and would have been just as pretty.
Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter were fun as the Thenardiers, although their masterful comic acting didn't surprise me. (Thank god for a little comic relief in that movie!)
I agree w/ JaxDad about that added song, "Suddenly." It didn't hold a candle to their previous compositions, although I thought the other music they added during the film (background) was important to sew together various scenes. It would have been strange to have asked other composers to do that....
There should be a third option: better than I was anticipating. As a die-hard Les Mis fan, I was super excited to see this. Then, bad reviews starting trickling in and I became really anxious that I would love it simply because I had decided to love it before I ever saw a single frame, but deep down, I would know it wasn't really good. So, I went in expecting to be disappointed, but looking for great moments to hang my admiration on. Going in with really low expectations, I was floored by how powerful it was. You still can't beat the stage show for sheer talent and the experience of hearing it live, but the close-ups allowed for an intimacy with the characters that the stage show doesn't. I was blown away. It was by no means perfect and I thought the choices in the changes were totally unnecessary (or at worst, painful - looking at you, new song "Suddenly"), but man, when it was on (which was far more often than not), it was killer.
There should be a third option: better than I was anticipating. As a die-hard Les Mis fan, I was super excited to see this. Then, bad reviews starting trickling in and I became really anxious that I would love it simply because I had decided to love it before I ever saw a single frame, but deep down, I would know it wasn't really good. So, I went in expecting to be disappointed, but looking for great moments to hang my admiration on. Going in with really low expectations, I was floored by how powerful it was. You still can't beat the stage show for sheer talent and the experience of hearing it live, but the close-ups allowed for an intimacy with the characters that the stage show doesn't. I was blown away. It was by no means perfect and I thought the choices in the changes were totally unnecessary (or at worst, painful - looking at you, new song "Suddenly"), but man, when it was on (which was far more often than not), it was killer.