Les Miserables: An Impressive Feat

I like musicals.  For me, I am fascinated by seeing how a story can be told through song, whether it be comical or serious and dramatic. Now, I have never fully experienced "Les Miserables." I only know of what the basic plot is and I know of the songs "I Dreamed a Dream" and "One Day More." Other than that, I have never fully seen the play. So I was excited to see this big-screen adaptation for a few reasons:

A). I would finally be able to witness this story for myself and judge it on my own merits, regardless if I haven't seen the musical.

B). I was really interested because of the people involved. I mean you got Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter, Amanda Seyfried and Russell Crowe. This last one I was extremely interested in because Crowe has never been in a musical before. I was really curious to see how his singing voice turned out. Plus, the film was directed by Tom Hooper, the man who had directed 2010's "The King's Speech." I was really curious to see how he would tackle a musical.

So what's the story? The film is about a convict named Jean Valjean (Jackman), a man who was imprisoned years ago but after being released and breaking his parole, he hides out and becomes mayor of a small town in France. While here, he agrees to help take care of Cosette (Isabelle Allen as a child and Amanda Seyfried as an adult), who is the illlegitmate child of factory worker Fantine (Anne Hathaway). Throughout the film, Valjean must avoid being re captured by Javert (Russell Crowe), the man who released him on parole.

So after finally witnessing Les Mis for the first time, what did I think of it?

I thought it was a great movie, but I will admit it is not for everyone.

The singing for this movie was done live on set so as to give the actors a more raw performance. That means no lip dubbing, and no pre recorded tracks. This kind of technique for musicals really has not been done before and for the most part, I thought the actors gave great performances. Hugh Jackman is excellent as Valjean. He shows ValJean as a man who is remorseful over his crimes and wants to repent. The rest of the supporting cast did a fine job as well (though I do believe that Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter were randomly walking around on set being themselves so the filmmakers threw them into costumes and just shot around them).

But perhaps the best actress in this movie is Anne Hathaway. I mean my God she is fantastic in this movie. She displays such emotion in her performance to a point where you completely sympathize with her. When she starts singing, "I Dreamed a Dream," I was completely blown away by the pain and raw emotion that she showed on her face. If she doesn't get a Best Supporting Actress nomination come Oscar time, I will flip something over in anger.

As for Russell Crowe...well more on him later.

The film, on a visual and techincal standpoint, looks incredible. Tom Hooper gives us some incredible shots of France. They are sweeping, majestic shots that make you feel that you ar truly traveling through France. Also, the production design looks fantastic there is so much detail given to the sets and the costumes.

However, there are a couple of issues I have with the film. One being that during a scene that takes place during the French Revolution and it is a battle between the soldiers and the revolutionaries. The whole thing is shot in "shaky-cam" format. I know that is being really REALLY nitpicky but I just thought it could have been done without the shaky cam effect.

My other problem was Russell Crowe. His singing needs a bit of work. He's not a god awful singer no he does have potential (he's better than Pierce Brosnan in Mamma Mia THAT'S for sure) but there were some moments where his voice sounded ok to me but a lot of moments where his voice was pitchy. He was the weakest singer in the movie easily though.

This movie is definitely not for everyone. If you are a fan of musicals, then you will probably end up loving this movie. About 97-99% of the dialogue is made up of singing so if you are not a fan of that, you will probably not love this movie.

But overall, "Les Miserables" is a great movie, though it is not for everyone. It is an impressive feat to witness and I would definitely recommend seeing it if you are a fan of musicals or a fan of any of the actors involved.

Grade: B+

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Review: A Welcome Return to Middle Earth.

When I was about 10 years old, my father took me and two of my friends to go see The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in theaters. The film completely blew me away and allowed me to immerse myself in this world and go on this epic quest with the characters. The film was also a bit of an epiphany for me, as it completely opened my eyes to how films were made. It made me realize "Hey. This is what a film is. This is what goes into making one." To this day, if people ask me what my favorite film of all time is, I usually say that it's The Lord of the Rings (I consider all three films to be one giant long epic).

So you can understand how excited I was when I heard Peter Jackson, the director of the LOTR trilogy, was returning to direct the prequel The Hobbit after Guillermo del Toro had backed out and after a long, long legal battle with New Line Cinema. However, I was nervous when he planned to expand the film from two films into three. The Hobbit is a short book to begin with but nevertheless, I had faith in Jackson.

And now we have this first installment, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. This film is the beginning of The Hobbit trilogy, as we find our protagonist, Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) become roped into going on an adventure with Gandalf (played once again by Ian McKellan), who asks him to help a band of 13 dwarves, led by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), who are trying to reclaim their treasure from the dragon Smaug .

Being a fan of Jackson's work on the Rings trilogy and a fan of the book upon which the movie is based, I was very excited to see what Jackson would do with The Hobbit. And, after watching the film, I felt that this was an extremely satisfying return to Middle-Earth.

The performances in this film are fantastic. Martin Freeman completely steals the show as Bilbo Baggins. Not only does he look like Bilbo from the book, but he gets so many mannerisms of him down. I can not imagine anyone else now playing this character. Freeman is known for being a very dry and witty British actor (to see a prime example of his acting, watch the BBC's Sherlock, where he plays Watson) and he gets to bring that wit to Bilbo. Bilbo is an immediately likeable and relatable character, being thrust into this huge adventure and seeing the rest of the world for the first time in his life. We experience all these new things along with him.

I liked the band of 13 dwarves in this, particularly Richard Armitage as Thorin. He gives an really good performance, making Thorin ashamed over the loss of his home and will do anything to get it back. The rest of the dwarves did fine as well. They all had their traits and were quite funny to watch at times.

However, I was particularly pleased to see some LOTR veterans return in The Hobbit. Ian McKellan, as always, kills it as Gandalf. He's excellent in this. Considering he is playing Gandalf the Grey and not Gandalf the White, he seemed not as serious as he was in the last two films. It was nice to explore more of Gandalf The Grey. Also, it was wonderul to see Ian Holm return as Bilbo, Elijah Wood as Frodo, Hugo Weaving as Elrond, Cate Blanchett as Galadriel, and Christopher Lee as Saurman. It was fascinating to see how these characters were before the events in LOTR.

But perhaps my favorite returning character was Andy Serkis as Gollum. I have always thought that Serkis was a brilliant actor and that he was criminally robbed of an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Gollum in The Two Towers and in Return of the King. Here, he still retains Gollum's split personality, but he portrays Gollum as being more in control of himself, until realizing the Ring is gone. The riddles in the dark scene he has with Bilbo, which is one of the most pivotal scenes in the novel, is probably one of my favorite scenes in the film, for he and Freeman play so well off each other.

Peter Jackson, even in the spending all this time away from Middle-Earth, still knows how to shoot this world beautifully. some of these shots in this movie are flat out gorgeous completely breathtaking. He also still knows how to shoot battle scenes, although we haven't seen any on a Battle of Helm's Deep level....yet. We still have two more movies to go.

But the thing that struck me the most about this film was its tone. The tone is very faithful to the book, as the book was light-hearted and whimsical compared to the dark and dreary tone of Lord of the Rings. Jackson manages to keep the light tone of the novel by including some genuinely humorous moments. I found myself chuckiling quite a bit at some of the humor in the film, especially the ones involving the Dwarves. Also, the film had more of a sense of fantasy and adventure and had a lot more fantasy elements than I expected. Is this Lord of the Rings? No but that's because it's trying to be its own thing. Yes there are specific music cues (Howard Shore's score is once again amazing) and certain moments that happened in the Rings trilogy are hinted at in this, but the tones are entirely different. One is dark and brooding while the other tries to give you a feeling that you're on an adventure.

The only two gripes I had with this film was that the first half at times is a bit slow (this IS a near three hour movie after all) but luckily, the last two hours make up for it. Also, there is a character in this film named Radagast the Brown, who is an....eccentric wizard. At times the character made me smile a bit, but other times he just came off as annoying to me. If you don't care much for annoying characters then you won't like this one.

But overall, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is a welcome return to Middle-Earth. Yes the first half is a bit slow but it gets made up for in the long run. Overall, I am very excited to see what the next two installments bring us.

Grade: A-

Pacific Rim Trailer: Robots vs. Monsters

Jeez, this last week has just been Trailer-palooza. We've had trailers for Star Trek, Oblivion starring Tom Cruise, and Man Of Steel. Now we have a look at Pacific Rim, the latest from Guillermo Del Toro. After months of speculation about the film, we finally get our first look at this thing. And hot DAMN does this look cool. The film is essentially giant alien monsters vs giant robots, as these monsters rose up and started to invade the Earth. In order to combat them, we humans built giant robots called Jaegers. What follows in this trailer is just....awesome. Simply awesome.

The visuals in this film....look amazing. I mean the monsters and the Jaegers look incredible. It was really cool to see the design of these monsters and how greatly they were inspired by the monster movies of old. And the way these Jaegers worked....it almost seems like a mix giant version of the giant version of the walkers from Avatar and a Transformer. Which is fine because these things look cool.

We also get some narration provided by Charlie Hunnam, who seems like he's going to be fine in this role. Also, we get some shots of Idris Elba, who looks like he's playing the head commander of the Jaeger unit. Overall, Pacific Rim looks like a very very cool movie and I can't wait to see more footage. The trailer will be in front of The Hobbit when it comes out this Friday (which I am seeing that day) and you can see Pacific Rim when it hits theaters July 12, 2013.

Man of Steel Trailer: Superman is Back

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The latest trailer for Man of Steel hit the Internet today and man did the inner nerd inside of me scream with glee after watching this. The teaser that was released over the past summer impressed me but I still had some doubts. Now after watching this trailer, I am 100% on board with the film. I have faith in director Zack Snyder's and producer Christopher Nolan's vision of the Last Son of Krypton.

From a visual standpoint, this trailer looks incredible. Snyder is known to be a very visual director and he gets to show that here. Some of the shots that Snyder has in this trailer are beautiful to witness.  There's one particular moment that I won't spoil that involves Superman getting ready to fly. That was probably my favorite shot in the whole trailer. Also, it was cool to see some, albeit very brief, shots of Krypton and of Jor-El, Kal-El's father and played by Russell Crowe.

But what struck me the most about this movie was the tone the trailer seemed to imply that the movie was taking. This is not going to be the Superman film that your father or your grandfather grew up with. This film seems to be going in a more darker and realistic directon, a la The Dark Knight Trilogy. Which would make sense considering the producer of Man of Steel is Christopher Nolan, the director of The Dark Knight Trilogy. This has Nolan's fingerprints all over it, giving Superman a more grounded approach.

 I love this new approach to the character because something that's always bothered me about Superman in both the movies and the comics is that everyone seemed to be too....accepting. It was sort of like "Oh hey you're an alien from another planet? Make yourself at home." However, with Man of Steel, it seems as if Snyder and Nolan are raising the question of can the world accept an all powerful-being from another planet? And are they ready?

I'm liking Henry Cavill as Superman he looks great in the costume. Kevin Costner and Diane Lane look great as Pa and Ma Kent and we get a very brief shot of Michael Shannon as General Zod, who looks like he's gonna be great in the role. Shannon is a really good actor and I'm excited to see his take on the character.

Overall, the Man of Steel trailer completely washed away any doubts I had about this movie and I am greatly excited for it. Check it out when it comes out June 14, 2013.

Introduction

Welcome to Reel Deal Reviews (yes I know the name sounds corny). This a blog of me giving reviews of films new and old and of the latest trailers that have hit the Internet. I'm just a 19 year old guy who loves reviewing movies so give this blog a look if you're a film lover or just love going to the movies!