Other than Crowe's singing (which isn't terrible),the musical absurdities (which is just a wavelength thing),& its extreme sincerity (which I consider a strength),it's pretty unimpeachable. There are so many powerful moments: Do You Hear?, Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, the battle on the garbage barricade, etc...and, of course, I Dreamed a Dream. Say what you will about Hathaway being a bit much at times; she was put on this earth to perform that scene.

Les Miserables is very old fashioned entertainment. It's a series of crescendo moments with no build-up, no backstory, no pause. It's like eating just the topping of the pecan pie, and not bothering with the crust or filling. We were just ten minutes into the movie when I had to look at my watch and ask, okay, how long can they keep this up? Climax after climax, plot twist after plot twist, tearjerking scene after tearjerking scene. Oceans! Mountains! Punishment! Suffering! Religion! Redemption! Will there be a break for lunch? Will we be able to catch our breath?

If you can watch this film without crying, I don't want to know you. The woman behind me was on the edge of her seat, not just because I smell good. The audience at the 10:40 a.m. matinée – the theater was packed – applauded at the end, and was very slow to leave the theater, even as the closing credits rolled.

Typical of big, fat, nineteenth-century novels, there are numerous implausible coincidences that drive the plot. These coincidences took me out of the movie, but that was a good thing. The human suffering on screen was overwhelming: suicide, enslavement, exploitation of living humans' body parts, prostitution, disease, spite, malice, child abuse, starvation, sadism, a dying man escaping through very graphic sewerage. I did have to repeat to myself, "This is only a movie" even as tears streamed down my cheeks.

Jean Valjean is imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister's starving children. He slaves for twenty years. He hauls a massive, capsized sailing ship. The scene does look like obviously fake CGI, but that doesn't make it any less gut wrenching. The workers sing, "You'll always be a slave. You are standing in your grave." They are the men we see in Sebastiao Salgado photographs of Third World laborers. They are Ilya Repin's "Barge Haulers on the Volga." Valjean's nemesis is the crazily obsessive policeman, Javert. They spar throughout the film, as Valjean's fate rises and falls and rises and falls and rises … you get the idea.

A story this big, this broad, and this implausible requires one hundred percent commitment from the performers. Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean is superb. He believes. He emotes. He is as big as the story itself. Jackman is the heart and soul of "Les Miserables." I loved him. Anne Hathaway, Eddie Redmayne, Samantha Barks, Helena Bonham Carter, Sacha Baron Cohen – they all had me convinced. Russell Crowe was a surprising disappointment. He's a brilliant actor and I kept waiting for him to bring some fire, some ice, some power, some insight to Javert, the obsessive and punitive policeman who mercilessly hounds Jean Valjean. I wanted a memorable moment that would make me feel that Crowe's performance brought Javert to intimate life for me. That moment did not arrive.

I wondered while watching this movie whether it will be embraced by the political left or the political right. It is a deeply and unashamedly Christian film. A Catholic priest, emulating Jesus, is the catalyst. Valjean spends the rest of the film working to live up to the priest's Biblical example. "Les Miserable" is leftist in that it depicts the poor rising up, but then the poor fail their own putative saviors, and allow them to be massacred, alone. Javert, representing law and order, is a monster. The film's brief glimpse of heaven is like some limousine liberal's fantasy.

I think "Les Miserables" is as popular as it is for the same reason that Cinderella is so popular. When "Les Miserable" was a stage play, tickets were a very expensive and difficult to acquire luxury. It is ironic that a play about the wretched of the earth would be such a luxury entertainment. Why do we enjoy watching people much poorer and more desperate than we will ever be? Why do we pay for the privilege? Because we all see ourselves in Cinderella, in Jean Valjean, no matter how lucky we are. I'll certainly never stand in cold sea water with iron shackles around my wrists and neck, overseen by a cold sadist like Javert. But, along with millions of others, I saw my own struggles in Valjean, and thanked God that I didn't have it as bad as he. If Jean Valjean can go on, I can, too!

I wish the songs had been a tad better. There are a couple of good ones, "I dreamed a dream" and "Do you hear the people sing?" All the actors sing very well. Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman sing especially well.

The movie version of "Les Misérables" is a hard sell to me, as I was simply blown away when I saw the play in London. I sat in the second row, center, and it just doesn't get any better than that. To this day, it's one of the best plays I have seen--and I have been to Broadway on quite a few occasions and seen many top plays. I am pretty sure that your reaction will depend, in part, on whether you've seen the play. It also didn't help with me that I've seen about a half dozen non-musical versions of the story--including the excellent 1930s French picture.

Apart from it simply being better in person, this style musical (without traditional lyrics and choruses you will find yourself singing later),is a hard sell to the public in general. It just doesn't work as well on film, as it loses the spectacle and emotional impact. So am I saying the film is bad? Nah. It just isn't as good--despite some very good acting, decent singing (while some reported that Russell Crowe was weak, I thought his voice just fine),lovely sets and some eye-popping cinematography. It IS a good film. I particularly liked Sacha Baron Cohen's song and dance number (get a load of the cat's tail!) but everyone seemed to try quite hard to make this film well.

While I could say more, I noticed that there are almost 700 reviews for this film, so I'll wrap it up and recommend the film mildly.