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Reading the reviews of LESMS that are trickling out, many of them seem to be by reviewers who perhaps have not seen the musical on stage.
Or, if they have, they didn't like it because it's all music, all the time. They all point to the fact that the movie is completely sung-through, much like an opera, and that it would be nice if they had regular dialogue exchanges instead between the big songs. I guess Tom Hooper could have made the choice to stray from the source musical and excise those songs, replacing them with dialogue instead, but all those parts are of a piece, in my opinion, with recurring motifs and themes tying the songs together.
They also have issue with the compressed nature of the whole story, as if condensing a 1000+ page novel into a 3 hour musical isn't hard enough. I feel like these reviewers should start off saying "if you aren't into musicals where every single line is sung, you might not be ready for Les Mis." And if anything, they should be throwing their onions at the stage musical itself, and not the movie, for these problems they have with it. Perhaps all reviews should start with "If you like musicals, then you'll probably like this. If you don't like musicals, then you probably won't like this. I, the reviewer, like/don't like musicals." and then go on from there.
At least they do end up tackling the directing, cinematographic, and editing choices in most of these reviews, taking Hooper to task for his use of closeups and wide angles in, what they seem to be saying, an overly showy manner.
Reading the reviews of LESMS that are trickling out, many of them seem to be by reviewers who perhaps have not seen the musical on stage. Dec 06, 16:27
I watched the five one-minute clips for LESMS posted at CS a couple of days ago... Dec 06, 20:20
huh, i really had no idea this would be all singing. guess i wont be seeing it {nm} Dec 06, 16:36
Yeah. If that's not your cup of tea in general, this probably won't change your mind :) {nm} Dec 06, 16:38
You haven't seen any of the ads? This will be video or one of the movie channels for me. {nm} Dec 06, 16:41
saw the trailer, which had anne singing that susan boyle song, but i just figured it was for the trailer {nm} Dec 06, 16:42
That is another way of saying that previous hype was overblown ;) {nm} Dec 06, 17:25
I'll disagree, if the reviews are there, box office is good, if not, it's bad, mostly {nm} Dec 07, 19:47
I can't wait to miss it. {nm} Dec 07, 11:10