Les Miserables brings back memories. How I fell asleep watching the very old version of this during French Literature class, and how I was secretly happy that I was sick when the lecturer showed the second part. =X One, because it was really slow, two, because it was in French and I'm not that fluent to understand it fully.
This adaptation is too slow at parts for me. If you try to cramp 2 books into 1 approximately 2.5 hour film, of course not every scene and character can be fully developed. I think they had to compromise because the "musical" part took away a lot of time which can be used for plot development. Imagine something which can be said in 2 minutes takes 10 minutes to deliver, because it's a song.
This is truly a musical, as in, 95% of the dialogues and monologues are in songs.
Anne Hathaway's "I dreamed a dream" was really really good. She had to sing and cry while looking very convincing, and was still able to hit the high (and low) notes. The others were not bad at all either. I was impressed by the children's singing. It did, however make me feel that the movie is more for showcasing the ability to sing of the actors instead of you know, (re)telling the whole story, because they sing so much!!!
The storyline is still clear, which means you would still understand what's going on, but like a lot of people complained: "The scenes changed too fast". Time constraint is the biggest problem. I guess if they were to split it into 2 movies, it would be less nice. =/ I wasn't touched enough to cry though. I have a heart of a man.
For me, if I were to watch this movie at home, I would need to play it a few times to finish it. Or probably fast forward the singing part. Sitting in the cinema is one good way of finish watching the movie for me, because I get distracted very easily.
I do miss my classes now. =( It was a lot more carefree back then. The only problem would be there are so little of us in the class, the lecturer ALWAYS knows who understands or just fell asleep in class. =X
That's what J_Fish has to say~ Au revoir~
P.s. GSC Midvalley, what happened?! We had to go twice to watch one movie, and the second time you delayed for about 45 mins before letting us in. No explanation was given. =/
