‘Les Miz’ never lets up
AP Movie Critic
Tom Hooper’s extravaganza, big-screen telling of the beloved musical “Les Miserables” is as relentlessly driven as the ruthless Inspector Javert himself. It simply will not let up until you’ve Felt Something — powerfully and repeatedly — until you’ve touched the grime and smelled the squalor and cried a few tears of your own.
It is enormous and sprawling and not the slightest bit subtle. But at the same time it’s hard not to admire the ambition that drives such an approach, as well as Hooper’s efforts to combine a rousing, old-fashioned musical tale with contemporary and immediate aesthetics. There’s a lot of hand-held camerawork here, a lot of rushing and swooping through the crowded, volatile slums of Victor Hugo’s 19th-century France.
Two years after the release of his inspiring, crowd-pleasing “The King’s Speech,” Hooper has expanded his scope but jettisoned all restraint.
But he also does something clever in asking his actors sing live on camera, rather than having them record their vocals in a booth somewhere as is the norm, and for shooting the big numbers in single takes.
How you feel walking out of this film will depend on what you brought into it. Maybe you listened to the soundtrack fanatically in high school. Perhaps you saw the show on stage during a vacation to New York. You will probably be in far better shape than someone coming into this cold.
“Les Miserables”: grade: B; gunning time: 2:30; rating: PG-13 (violence, sexual violence, adult themes)