Les Misérables

I think this movie was done as well as it could have been, but it hasn't aged well at all. I can see Javert (Played by Russell Crowe) chasing Jean Valjean (Played by Hugh Jackman) all over, hither and yon if Javert was really bored and his case file was really thin and he just had nothing better to do or if Valjean's crime was so monstrous that Valjean was a real danger to public safety, but Valjean's crime was so petty to begin with (It was revealed very, very late in the film) that when I finally learned what it was, I was like “Wha-a-ah?!?! THAT's what this whole, long chase has been all about?”

The siege in the later part would have made more sense if I understood what the rebels were planning to do to improve things in the event that they were successful, but that detail got lost in the the hazy, romantic, rebelliousness and bravery, etc. I guess they would have started something “New” and “Bold” and “Different,” yada, yada, yada.

Now, Madame Thénardier was another Helena Bonham Carter villain and she's gotten quite good at doing those roles. She played a very good villain in both Sweeney Todd and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. She's very good at being believably human, but also at arousing the desire to boo and hiss and throw things at the screen. Anne Hathaway did a good job as Fantine. She was very pretty with long hair and good clothes. After her hair had been shorn off and she had been degraded, abused, defiled and was dressed in rags, yeah, she looked pretty darned haggard and worn out.