Les Misérables (2012) - March 22 - Review

[JenM]

Originally Posted by retablo

It better be an extended cut with all the lyrics (and song) missing from the theatrical film. Hooper truncated the stage show into an almost indecipherable mess... when the initial assemblage was 4 hours, then his oridinal "director's cut" was 3... there was absolutely NO reason to cut another 30 minutes out of it and disrespect 25 years of fans but chopping up the songs which made it a hit in the first place. Nothing can fix the awful camerawork, but at least put the songs back in.

I've been a fan of the stage musical for more than 20 years, and I don't feel disprespected at all. I loved the movie. Saw it 3 times already.

Why are you blaming all of the cut lyrics on Hooper? A lot of those cuts are the same as the cuts in the current stage version too, and they've been there since long before the movie was made. If you listen to the 2010 London cast recording, or watch the 25th Anniversary concert, you'll see the same cuts to "Castle on a Cloud", "Come to Me", "Little People", and some of the sung dialogue scenes were shortened as well, as was the attempted bribery scene at the wedding.

In fact, the movie version restored some of the lyrics that have been gone for the show for a while - Valjean's scene where tells the Thenardiers that Fantine has died was cut from the show ages ago, and the "Turning", scene brings back the "someone used to cradle them and kiss them when they cried" lyric that was cut from the stage show.

The only missing lyric that really bothered me was Marius telling Cosette that he didn't know who rescued him from barricade, because then it went unexplained that he didn't.

I know the stage musical backwards and forwards, but I wasn't expecting an exact replica of the stage production. And I like a lot of the changes - they way Eponine's placement was changed, the appearance of the Bishop in the finale, Gavroche's new lyrics in "Look Down", the new placement of "Do You Hear the People Sing?" (and Gavroche reprising it when it looked like the barricade was doomed), the new sung dialogue between Javert and Valjean. Hell, I even liked the new song, even though it was obvious Oscar bait.

We lost "Dog Eat Dog", but I expect we'll see that back on the DVD. From what I've heard, the original rough cut was closer to 3 hours, but the studio wanted the cuts. Not the first (or last) movie to do it. Even with the cuts, the movie was criticized for being long.