I think the criticism of Russell Crowe's singing has been very harsh. The man isn't a bad singer, I thought his voice suited Javert down to the ground. In the end I really sympathised with Javert, and that Crowe was powerful and commanding throughout the film. It's for films like this that I go to the cinema, it was every bit as good as I'd hoped and I'd never seen the musical on stage or read the books, completely new and loved it.

"and I do think that is what it SOUNDS LIIIIKE"

Crowe's singing in this reminded me of Brosnan's in Mamma Mia

i agree that Russel Crowe singing was a bit stiff in look down. but i thought that he did really well in the suicide and stars...

Crowe's just kind of shouting the lines, while Jackman effortlessly and eloquently sings them. It's no coincidence that the most imposing and menacing line Crowe has in that clip is when he kind of snarls "No...".

how do movie clips that get online sometimes have such a higher pitch than in the actual film? anyone ever notice that?

He's not saying he's a bad singer, he's saying you have to be exceptional when you're next Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway ect.

Saw Les Mis for the first time last night. Amazing film. I welled up at the end. Although Russell's singing voice sounded less natural than Hugh's, it was still effective. In a way, his slightly forced delivery was consistent with his character as overly pious and self-disciplined.

Russell Crowe wasn't the worst thing about the film. His singing was disappointing but it didn't ruin it for me. What I really didn't like was the re-orchestrations. Far too many a capella intros into songs, and worst of all the chorus didn't have enough voices in it. It sounded weak compared to the stage. The orchestra sounded too light in many places as well.

The musical really revealed the internal pain of the story and actually did better than that which I prefer usually. This movie revealed that I really can go for the MUSICAL. I never would have thought that. Both are in my top 100 favorite movies. 49) Les Miserables (2012) & 60) Les Miserables (1998)

I'm with Mark, I hate when people say "just talk", as if the idea of them singing is detrimental to the movie. Its a musical for gods sake.

I completely agree! He was the absolute best of the film ! I adored his brilliant voice and extraordinary performance!

Hathaway and Jackman are the highlights. Eddie Redmayne and Samantha Barks also very good. From a technical point of view it's also done very well. It did drag in places though...

Look at those hands go!

Russell Crowe's singing is hilarious. Looking forward to seeing this film already.

Seek out the 10th anniversary version on DVD

This is an emotional film blew me away and I am not a big fan of musicals. Agree with some of what Kermode says about cockney factor. Watch it if you haven’t yet. It made me cry. Awesome beginning and end, slightly long in the middle but worth committing to it.

Great review

Mark's look at Simon for "You would know if you'd seen the show" is comic timing like a Woody Allen film. it's very sweet.

I'm going to miss your rants on Russell Crow....Les Miserables, The Mummy etc

Both Crowe and Jackman are signing live and aren’t singing perfectly yet you can here the Broadway experience in Hugh, as despite some inconsistencies (due to the fact he was singing for 8 hours straight each day) he still sounded amazing. Russell did not.

For me, Russel Crowe was the best thing about this film. His rigid, dogmatic adherence to the law set up the moral conundrum of the film: what constitutes right, and what constitutes wrong? (even if the film almost refuses to go beyond superficial insight, which I thought was a fatal flaw, for Victor Hugo was one of the great social, political and moral commentators of 19th century France, and this did no justice to that.)

If they'd showed Russell Crowe singing Stars or Javert's Suicide then they'd see Crowe's performance is great

Are you just saying that or do you mean it because the hand held shaky camera made me really nauseous

I completely disagree about Crowe's performance. I thought he has very good but can understand his voice may not be too everyones taste. However, I am sick of this assumption that just because his singing voice is considered weak his performance is similarly weak. Singing aside, Crowe does a very good job of making Javert a well rounded and interesting character, since the role could very easily be played as one note and antagonistic.

How do we answer "Kermode Uncut: Oscars And Kermodes" video when the comments are disabled. KZfaq admin please enable commenting there..

that entire song clip they played sounds like some mighty clunky Musical Basil Exposition

This got 2/5 in the Independent newspaper with a really damning review. I wonder if they were just being contrary- they usually quite closely match Kermode's views

i hate the fact that he said LESS MISREBLES

Russell was a singer in NZ and Aus when I was younger!!!

read the description, they want you to go to their website. they always want you to go their website, but especially for input on the Kermode's if you want to participate

Were you watching the correct film???

tbh i read his justification for crowe as being the sort of bare minimum thing he could bring himself to say in a positive light about it. its extraordinarily backhanded praise certainly not meant to be elevated to a general principle. and i'm sure you understand the reason why your book analogy is ludicrous. as for the opening setting the tone, i thought he might have been specifically referring to the sense of something big coming at you, and about to wash over you, not the visual of it

Even if you didn't like Russell Crowe as Javert (which I DID, I thought he was great), it was still a better casting decision than casting Nick Jonas as Marius in the 25th Anniversary show. What were they thinking?!?! He can't hold a candle to Alfie Boe or Ramin Karimloo. He's only mediocre as a pop singer!

I defy anybody not to watch Ann Hathaway's performance of I dreamed a dream and not be blown away, I was in tears (one of several times in the film) during her big moment in the film. Sasha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter deserve praise for effectively introducing a little hilarity into what had been an unrelentingly downbeat tone throughout the film. Highly recommended IMHO.

I didn’t mind the new Les Miserables. My only disappointment is that when people look up Les Mis they’re going to find this 2013 musical and not the 90s one with Liam Neeson which is phenomenal.

Makin' movies, makin' music and fightin' around the world! Russell Crowe! Sadly not out yet here in Sweden, but will go and see for sure. A lot of the negative stuff seems to contain words like "..If you like musicals" when looking at their reviews, bringing down their Meta-averages a bit, so obviously seems to lose their objectivity. I like musicals, so hopefully it'll be good for me. :)

The silverware Valjean steals (and the Bishop gives him) wasn't church property -- church property wouldn't have been the Bishop's to give away. Victor Hugo explains in the novel that it was the Bishop's own family silver.

It was fine, but I just spent the entire film thinking how much better it would've been on the stage. Only the Helena Bonham Carter/Sacha Baron Cohen bits and Anne Hathaway were actually worth my time. Jackman's singing was solid, of course, but he shared way too many of his scenes with Russell Crowe killing the movie dead for me to enjoy him.

I like Crowes version of stars, it grows on you.

Not sure he was the best thing in the film. But, I thought the criticism he received is really unfair. After hearing the Good Dr's review of Mr Crowe, I was ready to cringe at his performance. But, I thought it was fantastic and in no way a weak link in the film.

that bizarre moment you are criticizing a musical for having too music...

Well I thought Russell was the best best thing in the whole film. His singing fit the character.

why would you say that. he is sooooo good

Yea, in that scene I actually don't think he's that bad. But I founder other parts of the film where he's singing more are more problematic.

Amen to that!

Singing it live was a poor decision, purely because Rusty just doesn't have the chops, franks or beans.

Anne Hathaway throws herself into the performance in a way I have never seen before. Incredible. Eddie Redmayne is also incredible!

Please review Jack Reacher.

i loved russell in this movie! :)

Mark's fave word by a country mile... 'physical'.

Russell Crowe's singing was fantastic

I agree. I thought Jackman was disappointing. Russell Crowe did have his weak points but he wasn't nearly as bad as he was made out to be.

loved it more than the stage show shock horror 😣yes the show was too slow i ran 4 the bus quicker 😉

The film maybe too long & generally unfocused, however the film’s well acted, well directed, well written, stylish & is generally an enjoyable film. (74%) (3.5/5 stars) (positive)

I can't see what the problem is from that clip. But you do say there are worse bits, and I most likely won't watch this film, so I won't claim he's fantastic.

This was fine. The music was good, sometimes great, and I had no issue with any of the actors' singing ability. It was just everything else I had a problem with. The plot felt really shallow, even by the standards of a musical. The characters were just drifting from set piece to set piece without any proper sense of direction. I was quite bored for parts of it. Maybe I just don't like musicals.

Punishment doesn't fit the crime. Dude steals a loaf of bread and gets sentenced 5 years of slave labor, with 14 years tacked on for trying to escape. That aside what made this movie a success was lots of screen time for Russel Crowe and Hugh Jackman.

Paul Bettany should have been Javert.

I don't think Mayo was going to criticise musicals for singing in that way, rather it the way they eschew all sensible dialogue in the process. As a character in Futurama once said, interrupting a musical stage production, "You can't just have you're characters announce how they feel....That makes me angry!!"

I had an agonising first-world problem the other day, I had a choice between two musicals on 4k; Purple Rain (1984) or Les Miserables (2012) but at the end of the day I choose loyalty to the white race and bought Les Miserables. Sue me for racism profiling.

Why did you go and see it then?

I did like Crowe's voice in the singing...

the singing by Crowe was, *sucks teeth* not quite there.

I agree with Kermode...at least upon my first viewing. Crowe started getting in my nerves so much that I resorted to finding him funny in order to relieve myself of the pain I'd have otherwise felt. When I decided to take that perspective, Crowe was so hilarious whenever he appeared that I had a difficult time not bursting out laughing, though I did feel bad for Anne and Hugh for having to deal with that thing. So Fantine's death-very sad, and then pops Crowe Javert! Buhahaha!!

Agree about Helena Bonham Carter, normally can't stand her - does a very good job here.

yeah, I don't know about that.. :)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL PMSL crow singing

Claustrophobic closeups, overused fisheye lenses, lack of historical context, weak singing, melodrama, overused CGI.

Because he didn't know what it was like beforehand. Silly question really.

Russell Crowe was the best. An absolute brilliant performance.

yeah so anyone watching this to decide about seeing the film, don't be fooled by the procrowe comments. his singing is technically adequate in taht he's not like terribly off key or anything but it definitely feels forced, and to me that forced quality is different from how an authoritarian with a stick up his ass would be performed by someone who felt more at home with singing. its a spirited and tolerable amateur vocal performance, nothing more.

agreed. entertaining film but lots of harrumphing and huffing and puffing to lead to an ultimately shallow message which is 'vive la revolution.'

It was just a joke man

I was impressed with Crowe's singing in that clip, better than I would expect from him. Oh well

Kermode comments on Crowe's singing going hand-in-hand with his character. You're arguing a point with someone you're agreeing with.

Hugh Jackman is BRILLIANT vocally. Russell Crowe can't sing to save his life. I'm really glad he cleared that up. 👍

'So according to you it makes more sense to have werewolves because of wolves but not people who sing even though, well, people do sing.

You're wrong, simply.

Don't wear the name of a great man when spouting ignorance. People burst into song, collective and individual, more than you think-sports events for example or music concerts. If you spend time with those who enjoy singing you'll find spontaneous, improvisational song not to be such an odd occurrence and, as your own argument demonstrates, the most fantastical of our cinematic concepts are only exaggerations of reality. A spitfire becomes an X-wing as football fans become a chorus line

How can he love Evita ?? Madonna was beyond terrible ruined the whole film as the rest of the cast were great especially Antonio

watch the phantom royal albert hall bluray, and you will what a real performance is. this was all second rate, they sang when they had no song to sing, even the Bonham/borat just reminded you of how much better Sweeney todd was. this movie certainly made me miserable, it earns nothing its just all forced and poorly timed emotion, like someone who suddenly bursts into tears all the time, it just never range true, so it couldn't draw you in.

Exactly, they've been too harsh on his singing, focussing in on it because it's one of the few things not everybody loved about the film.

er.... who cares? its not important that Russell Crowe cant sing. Neither could Richard Gere in Chicago. It makes no difference cos the others can

"Russell can't sing".... what?

i cannot stand this type of talking-over-background-music musical. i will be avoiding this.

I thought Crowe was better vocally than jackman. I want the master to clean up in the actors nominations

As with most musicals the songs are so terrible it makes me want to tear my ears from my head and then eat them. For instance imagine how good Tim Burtons 'Sweeney Todd' wouldve been if Nick Cave or Tom Waits or Leonard Cohen had done the songs Its probably already happened but Les Miserables would make an excellent name for a Goth/Punk lead singer

He was rubbish, especially during Javert's Suicide. I couldn't help but think that on the stage, with someone who could actually sing, it would've been really powerful. With Crowe, it just wasn't.

its just too hollywood and anglosaxon

Fell asleep! Do not intend to revisit. Luckily, I hadn't paid to see it at the flicks

Fell asleep. Do not intend to revisit. Luckily, I hadn't paid to see it at the flicks

worst movie I ever saw

Crap musical. Live singing doesn't work.

Mark's dead on about the musical. It's terrible on so many levels, yet hardly any critic will dare voice this, as if there exists some showbiz fatwa on revealing 'Les Mis' for what it is: an overblown tritely rendered musically childish dirge. God knows why it's so popular, maybe it's opera for people who don't like music. So no, I won't be seeing this; no overacting of AH or bellowing of RC can remedy the musical's faults.

This turgid quasi-opera full of banal songs and melodrama is a pretentious mess. Being forced to sit through the movie was excruciating. Bad singing or good singing, this musical is drivel.

Please review Jack Reacher.