Les Miserables (Tom Hooper, 2012)

4.5/10
I knew going in this wasn't my bag - I've never seen a musical I've really enjoyed, and had no prior attachment to the source material. But it'll probably be around come the Oscars telecast, so I figured I'd better see it.
I spent most of the film's running time (just under six days, I believe) trying to decide if this was a bad movie or just a failed experiment, possibly a gigantic misstep from Tom Hooper. I'm leaning towards the latter.
There were two huge surprises from this film - first of all, how it utterly failed to evince any emotion from me whatsoever (excitement, suspense, sorrow, etc) and secondly, how unbelievably bland the whole thing looks. I can't even begin to guess at how many zeroes were in the budget figure, and after all that money I'm willing to wager there have been more memorable performances of the play in small-town theatres. Aside from an impressive opening scene and maybe a couple of scenes of interest towards the end, visually, the film is a total drag - not helping is the fact that 95% of the movie is shot either at night or in grey rain. I know the movie's not called Les Joyeux but I mean, come on...
As far as the always-singing angle, I didn't find it as distracting as I thought I might, but I think it took away from the film as a whole - these stop feeling like characters you can empathize with and just seem more like vessels for songs.
As far as the singers, I'll echo pretty much everyone's thoughts - Jackman is fine, Hathaway is excellent, and Crowe tries his best but just can't get there. The always-tight camera angles were noticeable, but not unbearable.
The movie as a whole is such a grim, drab affair, I found myself perking up every time Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter (two actors who I have no real love for) showed up to at least slap some life back into the thing.
I'd recommend switching off after the first half hour - you've got the opening ship scene and Hathaway's show-stealing number, and that's about as interesting as it all gets.