Les Miserables

I saw it last night.  A few comments follow.
It was, overall, excellent.  The cast do a great job.  Russel Crowe is fine, nowhere near as bad as people have made him out to be.  Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman are just as good as everyone says.  Jackman's probably even better.  Amanda Seyfried particularly impressed me as this is the only time I've seen Les Mis (I've seen it 4 times now) and haven't got fed up with Cosette's drippiness.  It's strange that I, as well as many others I have spoken to, normally root for the young Cosette but the adult Eponine.  Here I rooted for the adult Cosette as well.  Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter were hilarious, and Eddie Raymane was very good.
Obviously, the music was superb.  That's kind of the point.  But I thought the volume was too low.  I don't know if it's the cinema we went to or the film itself, but I was occasionally underwhelmed.  I sometimes felt a little distanced from the screen in a way that doesn't normally happen, because of the low sound levels.
Yes, I cried.  And, because people will ask, I cried at I dreamed a dream, Did you hear the people sing?, A little fall of rain, Drink with me, and Finale.  I was particularly gutted that they only did one verse of Drink with me.
There were some negatives, but the main one is not the fault of the film itself, it's the fault of the source material.  I always think that after the climax of The final battle, the sewers, and Javert's suicide, the show takes too long to end.  Empty chairs is excellent, and I guess Every day is necessary, but Turning is excessive and Beggars at the feast just doesn't fit with what's going on.  It spoils the mood.  Because the film includes everything in the musical, it has these weaknesses.
I've noticed how often this is the case.  Lord of the Rings is such a good film because the source material is so good.  I enjoyed the middle section of Life of Pi but thought the first act was boring and the ending just laughable - but that's more the fault of the book than the film adaptation.  The weakness in the Les Mis film is, similarly, down to the source material rather than the film itself.
However, overall, it was excellent.  Let's just say that the pre-race favourite, The Desolation of Smaug, certainly has it's work cut out to be named my film of the year in 12 months time.

Wicked vs Les Mis

I have seen very few musicals at all. I think that by the time I would have been interested in going, we’d moved out of London, and then I never got round to going much. So bear in mind that what I say here is based on very limited experience. There’s not much point to this blog, I’m just rambling about musicals.

From my limited experience, it seems to me that there are two types of musicals:
1. Cheesy, camp productions (the ones I’ve seen are Joseph and Starlight Express)
2. Deeper, more meaningful shows (I’ve seen Wicked and Les Miserables, but I believe Phantom and Blood Brothers fall in this category too)

I’ve seen Les Mis once in the West End and once as a school production (my friend was playing Valjean), and I can remember very little about either. I saw Wicked for the first time a few weeks ago in London and can remember it quite well. Shortly after seeing Wicked I was asked if I preferred it to Les Mis. After some brief thought, I think I said that I thought that Les Mis had better music, but that I loved Kerry Ellis in Wicked. Not the deepest or most thoughtful analysis.

Tonight I’ve been thinking a bit more about these two musicals. Here are my (inexperienced) thoughts.

Wicked
- I’ve seen it much more recently than Les Mis, so it is fresher in my mind and I am much more aware of how the plot works and how the characters all develop.
- The links with The Wizard of Oz are very cool – I love how it all fits in.
- As already mentioned, Kerry Ellis is amazing. She completely owned the show – the best stage performance I’ve ever seen, by an absolute mile.
- I think I prefer the hit songs, such as Loathing, Dancing Through Life, Defying Gravity, For Good, to the ones in Les Mis. Though this may be due to the fact that I’ve seen it more recently, or that Ellis is so good.

Les Miserables
- Les Mis is really epic – certainly the soundtrack is much longer than Wicked, though this may be because Wicked has many more spoken lines.
- I love the backdrop of the French Revolution, the historical context. I guess this is equivalent to the Wizard of Oz point for Wicked.
- The soliloquys in Les Mis are great, and give more depth to the characters. Wicked doesn’t have these so much (just a couple from Elphaba I think).
- Les Mis has a lot of plot lines, with a lot of characters, which Wicked lacks because it is more focused on just the lead character.

Overall, I think that one of the key differences between these two musicals is that Wicked is essentially Elphaba’s story, whereas Les Mis has several lead roles. Therefore Wicked is dominated by Kerry Ellis, while Les Mis has a more complex plot.

I think that if I’d seen the two musicals in the same circumstances, I would rate Les Mis more highly. That’s another way of saying I think Les Mis is better I suppose. But when I saw Les Mis I didn’t completely follow it, and when I saw Wicked I was blown away by Ellis. So that’s another way of saying I prefer Wicked. At the moment.