Les Misérables (2012) - 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital [4K UHD]

Yes, it's all sung. Les Miserables is two hours and forty minutes of song. There's no real spoken dialogue the entire way through. Every minute is sung live as well. And if this bothers you, please skip "Les Mis" and enjoy watching something like "Twilight" or "Jack Reacher". Tom Hooper made this film a game-changer for the way a movie-musical is supposed to work. Lip-synching a pre-recorded studio version seems economical, but today, can allow for auto-tuning and editing a singer's voice. It doesn't feel personal. The voices in "Les Mis" sound raw and real. The actors sang live onset with earpieces playing piano accompaniment, with a 70-piece orchestra being added in in post production. The music sounds extraordinary. There sure as hell isn't any auto-tuning going on. For example, take Anne Hathaway's rendition of "I Dreamed A Dream". At this point in the story, we don't know Fantine very well, but we see the struggle that she's put through. She's at her lowest point. Hathaway half-belts and half-sobs the iconic song, the entire thing being filmed in one take. It's an extremely emotional performance that will bring any person with a heart, to tears. Criticism that I've been hearing of the film mostly revolves around the performances of Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman, as Javert and Valjean. I think both of these guys did fantastic jobs, quite frankly. Crowe isn't the best singer in the world, but his voice fits the part of Javert very well. As for Jackman, well, it could be argued that he carried the entire film. I think he did a splendid job; the role of Jean Valjean is a giant undertaking, and I think he nailed it. However, the real excellence of this film lies in the supporting cast. Everybody is perfectly cast, but particularly Samantha Barks in the role of Eponine. She played the same character in the 25th Anniversary performance of Les Miserables, only two years ago. One small criticism; my favorite part of Eponine's solo (and theme song to self-loathing masochists everywhere) "On My Own", the beginning part, is cut entirely. However, once you see what Barks does with this song it's easily forgiven. Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen, who look like they're in "Sweeney Todd 2", are great comic relief as the Thenardiers. Cohen is the only cast member in this Paris-set film who sings in a French accent, however... I find that strange. Eddie Redmayne and Aaron Tveit are perfect as Marius and his colleague Enjolras. Redmayne's "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables", near the end of the film, will make you cry. His voice goes to extraordinary places, and in such an emotional number, where he's telling the story of his friends who are no longer with him, this is a place where the live singing truly shines. The live singing, itself, is a huge undertaking, cinematically. Director Tom Hooper certainly had alot at stake with this project, however, there are still things that he could have done better. There are so many close-ups in the film. While they work for solos like "I Dreamed A Dream" and "Empty Chairs", they don't work for others. I also kind of feel like Hooper used the fish-eye camera lens a little too often, but these are inconsequential criticisms that don't make the film any less powerful. I saw this movie a week before it came out because I won advance screening tickets and I have known the song I Dreamed A Dream my whole life but I have never seen the musical on stage or any of the adaptations before. I went into this with no expectations at all. At first I thought the movie started off kind of fragmented and I figured because it had to introduce everybody and I was right. The film ended up as it went on drawing me in more and more and making me fall in love with it and by the end i was mesmerized with how wonderful and amazing the movie is. I believe they picked perfect roles because after i saw the movie i listened to the Broadway soundtrack and i believe they did very well on picking out the cast for their vocal ranges and capabilities. I think anyone who loves the musical or is a musical person should defiantly see this movie because they will not be disappointed one bit by how amazing it is .

Why should I write another review, when to me the best reviews for this film are so spot-on terrific they can choke me up to the point of tears all by themselves. Instead, I would like to focus on some things that I haven't seen mentioned yet. But first, a bit of background. To begin, I do not cry at sad movies. I will sometimes tear up at happy ones. But I have never cried throughout an entire movie, or at least 90% of it. Yes, the emotion of this film is unmatched. It is astonishingly intense throughout: electrifying, appalling, tragic, remarkably eye-opening, and finally, a most exquisite, triumphant victory of goodness and love over all that is not. The plot and story line have been so well covered by the other reviewers, that I need add nothing. However, the characters, and the cast who play those roles are, with very few exceptions, breathtaking. What I would like to add in this review is a bit of a comparison with the 25th Anniversary Concert of Les Miserables. Much has been said about the "live" singing, and in addition, its (opinionated) below par quality as well. Conversely, I was amazed at how magnificent it was! I don't believe that someone who has never been in a recording studio can remotely appreciate how difficult it is to sing "live" like this cast did and make it sound good. And as one reviewer pointed out, the combination of camera closeness and live singing allowed for magnificent articulation, where every word was clearly heard, and even felt, something so often absent in today's movies. Now the characters, bearing in mind that virtually the entire film is sung: Ann Hathaway was magnificent as Fantine, and Eddie Redmayne as Marius may have been the best of all. His "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" was a performance for the ages. Samantha Barks was breathtaking as Eponine, and played that role in both the Concert and the film. So here may be a good place for the comparison I mentioned earlier, and perhaps the best place to begin is with Javert. In the Concert, Javert was played by Norm Lewis, a brilliant baritone who also sings with great expression. And although he can sing dramatically better in a professional sense than Russell Crowe, I have to give the nod to Crowe. In fact I thought he was fantastic. Maybe his voice doesn't compare with Lewis, and although Lewis's expression was superb, it was Crowe's acting-singing combination that caused a synergistic outpouring, and made his performance awesome. Now to Hugh Jackman. As one reviewer said, he was "splendid...and it could be argued carried the entire film." Except...I had seen the Concert before the movie. A British tenor, Alfie Boe, played Jean Valjean. I am very far indeed from being an expert, but I now honestly believe he has the greatest male voice I have ever heard. And I will tell you exactly why. I think many would agree that "Bring Him Home" is one of the quintessential musical numbers in the film. Alfie Boe is one of the very, very few tenors who can sing with both rich, full volume, and a magnificent falsetto as well, with which he can liltingly vocalize an extremely high note, very softly, and with perfect vibrato. To me, the last line of "Bring Him Home" is perfect for this soft, emotional finish, and his standing ovation after this at the Concert seemed unending. This should not detract, but actually add to Jackman's terrific performance. To sing "Bring Him Home" the way Jackman did was more difficult, not less! And it should be a given that Jackman had one of the most difficult roles to play, ever. At the beginning, it truly looked as if Jackman was "standing in his grave." There is not much I can add to the performances of Colm Wilkinson as the loving, life-changing Bishop, while Amanda Seyfried as Cosette is a lovely soprano with spectactular range. I will always have a warm spot in my heart for little Gavroche, played by Daniel Huttlestone. Perhaps the one negative thought I had was that in the Concert, Matt Lucas as Thenardier and Jenny Galloway as his Madame were a bit stronger than Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham in the identical roles in the film. The movie, however, was able to capture the hilarious antics of the duo's pickpocketing methods that the Concert could not do. This was a movie that director Tom Hooper took considerable risks to bring us delightfully new things as well. In addition to being entirely sung, I thought it was a bit of creative magic to use the same 4 or 5 melodic lines to create all of the songs, just with different lyrics. I hate to use an old cliché, "paradigm shift," that in the nineties went so viral as to become virtually meaningless, but to me, this represents a true paradigm shift in filmmaking. It is years ahead of its time and should become the standard that many later films strive for. It was The Best Picture of the Year. Period.

La más emotiva de todas las versiones que se han hecho, muy recomendable

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This review has been in the making for about 5 months. I have been putting it off because I wanted to do it justice and give a fair, balanced review. Of course, I was tempted to write one immediately after I saw it, but there were other factors that might have given it a bias; I was lucky enough, completely by chance and luck (I had no idea until the day), to attend the premiere of this film, and meet the cast, so I would have given it 5 stars even if it had been rubbish. So I watched it again over a month later, and then I had absolutely no doubt at all that my first impression was right. This film is something else. One daily mail critic called it "not only the most ambitious British film of all time, it's the best" or words to that effect. And certainly this film is ambitious. Hooper's directing can be a bit too ambitious in that it doesn't always work; this film is so 'big' and he attempts to convey that but at times the editing is shoddy and the camera work sub par. And yet this does not detract at all from the viewing experience. In fact, it lends it a raw quality which is completely perfect for this gritty story, and this is further helped by the fact that the cast sing live. Some reviewers have complained that the singing is below-par, but this is exactly what I think makes this film so brilliant. I am not a huge fan of musicals in general, as I find it a tad annoying when actors suddenly burst into beautiful song. However, here, most of the film is sung and it makes sense for the voices not to be beautifully polished. I remain extremely impressed with the super-talented cast; not one cast member disappointed me. I loved both Crowe and Jackman's performances (in particular Jackman's- to me he held the film together). Similarly the supporting cast were exceptional; Hathaway deserves her oscar, and Barks and Seyfried were wonderful as Eponine and Cosette. I must add that I had never seen the musical before (having not really been a fan of musicals, although I have seen it now) and yet this completely blew me away. The wonderful thing is that through the film you can get the stunning visuals and emotional intensity that is completely missing from the stage version. Of course, if you want to hear a wonderfully able cast sing these songs, the stage version is for you, but for me I preferred the raw, real, unpolished voices of the actors in the film. Victor Hugo's story is so powerful and I believe the film does it better justice than the stage, which is more about the quality of the singing. In short, even 5 months later, this film still resonates with me, and not because I had a wonderful conversation with Eddie Redmayne, but because it's ambitious. It's unpolished. It's different.

Wie ich schon bei der Highlight-CD verkündet habe: "Les Miz" ist und bleibt mein Lieblingsstück unter den Musicals. Gerade dass es mehr Oper als Musical ist und nahezu gänzlich auf Dialoge verzichtet, macht es so mitreißend - eine wunderschöne Melodie löst die nächste ab, jedes Lied bringt die Stimmung perfekt rüber. Generell muss man schon zwischen Bühne und Film unterscheiden - die Medien sind zu unterschiedlich, aber wenn man das Bühnenstück im Hinterkopf hat, sind natürlich gewisse Erwartungen da. So fällt es bei der Bühnenfassung gar nicht auf, wie sehr durch manche Szenen gehetzt wird, weil im Theater so viele visuelle und akustische Reize mitspielen, im Film hingegen fällt es doch mitunter auf (z. B. die Szene im Gericht). Das war für mich zwar nicht so irritierend, ich könnte mir aber vorstellen, dass dem einen oder anderen, der das Musical nicht kennt, das negativ auffällt. Und während ich Kostümierung und Maske phantastisch fand, sind mir die Bluescreen-Effekte teilweise sauer aufgestoßen; das alte Paris wirkte zum Teil dermaßen CGI, dass es die ganze Authentizität kaputt gemacht hat (z. B. bei "Stars"). Der Film lebt aber vor allem von den Darstellern - das merkt man schon allein an den vielen Close-ups (man bedenke, dass "I dreamed a dream" nur aus einer Nahaufnahme von Anne Hathaways Gesicht besteht). Hugh Jackman und Anne Hathaway spielen sich wirklich die Seele aus dem Leib und wirken auf mich auch keineswegs überzogen und hyperdramatisch, wenngleich mir nach wie vor nicht gefällt, dass Hugh Jackmans Stimme des Öfteren etwas gepresst klingt und gerade "Bring him home" viel zu sehr rausbrüllt. Aber seine Verwandlung vom Gefangenen zum Bürgermeister zum alten, gebrechlichen Mann ist schon sehr beeindruckend. Neben den hervorragenden Darstellern mit Musicalerfahrung (Aaron Tveit und Samantha Barks) sticht für mich aber Eddie Redmayne am meisten heraus. Nicht nur eine klasse Stimme (vor allem in den Höhen), sondern auch grandios gespielt. "Empty chairs at empty tables" ist mir jedenfalls nähergegangen als "I dreamed a dream" (das ich schon phantastisch fand). Russell Crowe hat (zurecht) die meiste Kritik abbekommen. Beim Durchhören der CD fand ich seine Stimme schon schwach, hab aber darauf gesetzt, dass mich sein Schauspiel überzeugt - dem ist leider nicht so. Wenn man Mimik mit Jackman und Hathaway vergleicht, so hat Crowe eigentlich die ganze Zeit den gleichen Gesichtsausdruck und ist zu sehr darauf fokussiert, die Töne einigermaßen richtig zu singen, worunter das Schauspiel insgesamt leidet. Javert, eine starke Persönlichkeit, die nur Schwarz und Weiß kennt, kommt insgesamt zu schwach rüber. Immerhin sind die Töne an sich richtig - und wenn man sich auf YouTube mal ein paar Videos mit Crowe ansieht, merkt man auch, dass er eigentlich gar keine schlechte Stimme hat - aber für diese Art von Musik einfach total unpassend. Da hat beispielsweise Amanda Seyfried den Vorteil, dass sie schauspielerisch sehr in die Rolle der Cosette passt, wenngleich auch ihr Gesang eher dünn ist. Immerhin war ich vom letzten Ton bei "A heart full of love", der ja ziemlich hoch ist, sehr angenehm überrascht. Auch kleinere Rollen wie der Vorarbeiter in der Fabrik, Gavroche und einige der Studenten, sind wirklich toll besetzt. Mit meinen Kritikpunkten würde ich am liebsten 4.5 Sterne vergeben, aber weil mich der Film nicht nur trotz Länge gut unterhalten, sondern auch tief berührt hat, bekommt er die volle Anzahl an Sternen. Jedem, der das Musical kennt und/oder Englisch gut versteht, empfehle ich die Originalversion. Die "deutsche" Fassung ist größtenteils untertitelt, nur die wenigen Dialoge haben sie dann doch synchronisiert anstatt einfach den Film komplett zu untertiteln, was vermutlich etwas irritierend ist (sagte man mir). Die Texte sind sprachlich nicht unanspruchsvoll, aber meiner Meinung nach gut zu verstehen, sogar die Passagen, in denen recht dreckiges Britisch gesprochen wird (z. B. Gavroche). Dass die Reihenfolge der Lieder verändert wurde, die Lieder zum Teil gekürzt und die Texte abgeändert oder sogar erweitert wurden, hat mich überhaupt nicht gestört oder irritiert. Es hat gut gepasst und war nicht weniger schlüssig als bei der Bühnenfassung. Insgesamt eine gelungene Adaption, die die Hoffnung weckt, dass vielleicht ein paar mehr Musicals der Sprung auf die Leinwand gelingt - vor allem denen, die es hierzulange nicht (mehr) gibt (einmal abgesehen von den horrenden Ticketpreisen).

This is a great movie. No wonder it was so successful. Even for those anti-musical-movies persons this proves to be so good that my wife loved it. My wife can not stand any musical movie, not even the old ones from the golden age, and she does not like Broadway stuff. She is a big fan of cinema, on her birthday she'd rather watch 2 movies than go to a fancy restaurant. Said so, you can imagine my surprise when she loved this film, and I think it is for 2 major reasons: One is the top level cast and performances. The second is the powerful story from the classic of Victor Hugo. So even if these actors are not "singers" the do a great job because we are in "cinema", not "broadway". The biggest difference is that you get all these close-ups of their faces, different angles, the illumination, make-up, etc., so a great singer may not be the best choice to be seen that close and intimate, so in "cinema" they decided to cast real actors instead of singers and it was a good choice. Anne Hathaway is able to transmit all the suffering only with her eyes, no matter how good or bad she is singing. So if you don't like actors trying to sing, just give it a try and remember that great singers are not good actors and you may not believe them if you have them in a close-up. That is the good about Broadway, they are far away, with all this theatrical make up, and you don't really see their eyes, so their voices are the only thing you get.