Les Miserables – 7

The music is kind of blah, the lyrics sophomoric, and the movie played like a stage musical, with pauses for applause after every set piece. When I saw Les Mis in the theater I found it a derivative and lukewarm Phantom of the Opera. What was notable in the film version were the performances – scintillating by Anne Hathaway and Eddie Redmayne, amusingly adroit by Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter, suitably noble by Hugh Jackman, but excruciatingly weak by Russell Crowe. Horribly miscast, he projected none of the menace or dogged determination needed from Javert – and why did he care about Jean Valjean in the first place? I should also single out Aaron Tveit and Samantha Barks, wonderful in their minor roles; but again, this emphasis on the singing leads and the tremendous production numbers made this seem less like a coherent movie than a spectacle. Les Mis either makes you cry or it doesn’t. For me, it didn’t.