I'm still not quite sure how I ultimately feel about this, but I will hopefully have that figured out at the end of this post. There has been a lot of talk about how disappointing most of the voices were, but that wasn't really my problem. Yes, I was a little disappointed in Russell Crowe, I wanted his voice to be stronger, and I was disappointed in Amanda Seyfried, I wanted her voice to be less sharp. However, they were not bad. Hugh Jackman was good, Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter were good, and the chorus was always good. Eddie Redmayne, Marius, and Anne Hathaway were absolutely amazing, with Eddie Redmayne completely blowing me away (I think I found a new person to fall in love with!). So, the voices were not my problem.
The acting was also well done, but, considering the cast, how could it not be? In fact, I think many people's problems with the voices have to do with the way this particular musical was done. They did not record the songs and then lip-sing while filming. Instead, they did it all together. And remember, this is a movie, not a broadway musical. It's not all about the singing and the dancing, it's about the emotions, the feeling, the drama, the characters. So, filming live singing is going to be more emotional and heart-felt. It's going to be rough.
I think my problem comes in with a related aspect of the new style of filming a musical. Yes, it's theoretically good in that you get raw acting emotion behind the music that is absent otherwise, but you also get a lot of face time because the focus is capturing that raw singing, not making a movie. When I go to a movie I want to see scenes, interactions, movement, etc. I want the story in my head brought to life, when it is a movie based on a book in particular. I don't want to see a HUGE theater screen version of Hugh Jackman's face. He is beautiful, yes, but I want to see the church he's in, the towns he's traveling, the people he's meeting, not his face with his messed up prison teeth. When Anne Hathaway is doing her beautiful rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream," I want to see her life falling apart in a way that does not have me zooming in on her face every 30 seconds. In some ways, that much movement is nauseating, in other ways I just want more. Either way, it's less than satisfying.
The faces left a poor taste in my mouth. There is a benefit to watching a musical movie instead of going to a Broadway musical. That difference is that you can show more, you can do more, you can bring the entire setting to life more because you are only as limited as your budget, not your small stage. And here, the budget appeared to be huge! So, why not make a movie that is a movie, not a series of faces with some scenes thrown in when there just happen to be more than one person singing.
In the end, I think I generally liked the singing, I liked the acting, I fell in love with Marius, I liked the story (yes, despite this being 60% facetime, there was still a story). I did not like the facetime. So, I give this movie a 6 out of 10 as a movie and an 9 out of 10 as a filmed musical.
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