Logan (2017)

Logan (2017)

Director: James Mangold

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen, Richard E. Grant, Stephen Merchant

In the spirit of James Mangold’s new X-men movie: Logan (2017), let’s start this review straight to the point shall we? Logan is a swift kick to the nuts to all these comic book movies that we’ve been seeing as of late. You know the ones. The computer generated fuck-a- thons that we’ve gotten so accustomed to. The truth is that we’ve had enough of those haven’t we? Movies in which computer effects have taken over human emotion, they’ve taken away that feeling. You walk out a lot of those movies with numbness in your head. Logan is the complete opposite of that and it’s so goddamn refreshing!

Logan is the story of Wolverine in his last days, when he finds no pleasure in being alive. His “dad” is Professor Xavier, an aging empath who can’t control his powers. In comes a woman named Gabriela who wants’ the famous ‘Wolverine’ to help her find a place called ‘Eden’, a supposed heaven for mutants somewhere in North Dakota. Can Old Man Logan still do this? Will he agree to helping Gabriela and Little Laura reach ‘Eden’?

I honestly thought people were exaggerating about how good Logan was, because recent films that people have raved about have disappointed the hell out of me.  John Wick Chapter 2 (2017) I’m looking at you kid. So I went to see Logan with some trepidation, yet the first ten minutes of this film quickly put me in my place! It wasn’t long before I was saying things like “What. The. Fuck.” Should I put things in perspective? The films first words are “Aw fuck!”. On this film, Logan is a limo driver trying to forget his past with the X-men, he’s trying to live the life of a regular Joe. Basically, he just wants to be left alone to die in peace. Mutants are going extinct and Professor Xavier is a senile old man who doesn’t know where he stands. Holy bajeezus! What the hell is going on here? I wasn’t ready to see Wolverine and Prof. Xavier in such dire straits! It is this level of gravitas that makes this film stand apart, it’s not afraid to mess with the status quo, in fact, it throws the whole X-men universe out the window! Fuck that shit! Awwww I love it!

The great thing about this film is that it is a cliché breaker; it takes everything you expect from a Wolverine movie and turns it upside down. This is why it works so well, on this movie nothing is sacred and anything can happen. So you feel unsafe, you don’t feel like you can predict the film every step of the way, like you’d be able to predict a film like Kong Skull Island (2017) for example. I mention Kong Skull Island because I actually did a double feature of Logan/Kong and went from the ultimate anti-cliché movie (Logan) to a cliché by the numbers movie (Kong). So trust me, Logan is like a bucket of cold water being thrown down your back. It’s the ice bucket challenge, but for X-men fans!  

Why does this movie work so well? Various factors play an important factor in this. First, moviegoers in general are tired of computer generated special effects, specially the kind that take over an entire film. You know how it is. Suddenly, nothing that is happening on screen is real; it was all created on a computer. This can go on for minutes and minutes on end. I mean, suddenly it’s been ten minutes and not a single actor, not a single set, not a single real location has been seen on screen and then you have to wonder, am I watching a live action film or an animated one? Wolverine keeps its visual effects to a minimum. This is not to say that it doesn’t have them, but it keeps them to a minimum, to enhance a moment. And even then, they don’t take over. They are simply used to enhance an illusion. Beautiful. It’s the way effects should be used. Second. This is a strong screenplay. Why? Well, because its not about saving the universe from another whole that’s opening up in the middle of New York City (again), rather, it’s a very personal story about Logan and Proffessor Xavier dealing with getting old and coming to the last stage, coming to terms with the end of their lives.

The third and final point is that the cast Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart and newcomer Dafne Keen out do themselves performance wise! They all bring their ‘A’ game here. I’ve heard some people talk about giving Patrick Stewart a nomination or something. That might be stretching it a little? It probably has to do with how different this take on Professor Xavier is. It’s great to see Logan playing the father figure to X-23, the scenes with both of them together, road tripping? Sweet.  One little thing though, I did feel that Logan turns suddenly into Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (1984). Was director James Mangold paying tribute to that film? The reason I mention this is because the similarities are staggering. So that’s it ladies and gents. What we got here is a fantastic film that shakes the very foundations of the X-men universe. Wolverine fans should be pleased. Question is, who’s gonna be playing Wolverine next? Whoever he is, he’s got big shoes to fill.

Rating: 5 out of 5

  

Chappie (2015)

Chappie (2015)

Director: Neil Blomkamp

Cast: Dev Patel, Hugh Jackman, Sharlto Copley, Ninja, Yo-landi Visser, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Sigourney Weaver

When you see Chappie, you immediately know it’s a Neil Blomkamp movie. It has his signature all over it. Let’s see, it was shot in Africa (like his previous two films) it stars Sharlto Copley and it has robots engraved into the story, all elements we've seen in his previous films. What I like about Blomkamp’s films is that they always have something to say. His films are very socially conscious; they are never just empty spectacles. For example District 9 (2009) spoke of racism, Elysium (2013) spoke of classism and now here we have Chappie, Blomkamp’s third film. What does this talented director have to talk about this time?

Chappie is all about these armor plated attack robots that are used by the South African police force to pacify and protect the country. These robot cops have proven effective in reducing crime in the country. Deon Wilson, the robots designer, has invented a chip that can make the robots sentient. In other words, he can make these robots think and feel on their own. Problem is that his ideas sound too radical for his superiors, so they deny him the permission to move forward with his sentient chip. In a desperate move to “shape life and not let life shape you” he decides to steal a robot that was meant to be scrapped and installs the chip on it in this way jump starting the first sentient form of artificial intelligence. Unfortunately when the robot becomes conscious, it has the intelligence of a child. It learns fast, but it is very naïve. What happens when Chappie ends up with the wrong crowd?

Blomkamp infused Chappie with elements from many films that he grew up watching. For example, the first idea that popped into my head while watching Chappie was that Neil Blomkamp should have been the director for the Robocop (2014) reboot. Here’s a guy who really, truly understands the themes that a film like Robocop plays with. In fact, one look at Chappie and it’s obvious that Blomkamp’s a huge fan of Paul Verhoeven’s original Robocop (1987), especially those scenes where we see the robot police force at work. When Chappie’s taking the world in, like a little baby, it reminded me of Johnny 5 from Short Circuit (1986), especially in those scenes in which Chappie is learning all about life and death. All I could think about was Johnny 5 saying “Johnny 5 is ALIVE!” Those scenes in which Chappie is taken advantage of by a bunch of hoodlums to do questionable things reminded me of those scenes in Edward Scissorhands (1990) when Edward is dooped into committing a felony without even knowing it because he is so naive. Those scenes where Chappie goes up against a huge clunky robot brought to mind the climactic confrontation in Robocop 2 (1990), where Robocop destroys the city as he fights against a bigger Robocop. In fact, if we’re to go even deeper into Chappie’s influences, we discover that it plays with the ideas of transferring consciousness into an artificial body, a theme we saw played out in Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell (1995), hell, Chappie even has a little bit of Appleseed in its design, I’m speaking of Chappie's rabbit ears of course.  As you can see, Chappie has elements from many films that deal with similar subject matter. 

Okay, so Chappie is influenced by a gazillion movies (what movie isn’t these days?), but what is it about? As it turns out Chappie talks about some very important themes, it speaks about the importance of who brings up a child. One of the theories of human learning says that Humans learn by imitation, we copy others behavior. This is true with children who repeat everything we say and do everything they see us do. Some of us get decent role models, but some of us get terrible parents who are terrible role models. The question Chappie asks is what happens when our role models are violent people with no morals? What if our role models believe stealing and killing is okay? Will we grow up to become robbers and killers? Chances are we will. The film stresses the importance of good parenting, good education and good role models in our lives. The movie goes into deeper territory when Chappie’s knowledge grows and he starts to ask ‘the big questions’. Why must we die? Why make us with an expiration date? It’s no coincidence that Chappie’s creator is called Deon, which sounds like Deus, which is Latin for God. So we have the creation asking its creator for more life. Like the androids in Blade Runner (1982), Chappie also wants more life. So yeah, Chappie has its themes. It’s not an empty shell.

The cast is an eclectic bunch. We have the participation of Die Antwoord the African rap/rave band, who by the way also supply the music for the film, not the best performances in the film, but also not terrible. Dev Patel does good as Chappie’s creator. We have Hugh Jackman as a ‘villain’ which is a first for Jackman who never plays villains. Sigourney Weaver is on board as the head of the corporation that builds the robots. She has a small role, which lately is all she’s been getting, but that’s okay with me because due to her small part in Chappie, she’s just started working with Blomkamp on the next installment of the alien franchise, which I’m all kinds of excited about. Every alien movie is different, because there’s always a different director behind the cameras. I’m looking forward to Blomkamp’s take on the alien universe, I’m sure robots will be involved somehow.  As far as Chappie goes, it was an enjoyable entertaining ride with something relevant to say. The effects work was fantastic, I loved the way Chappie looks, it’s a cool design. Chappie looks very similar to the robots on Blomkamp’s early short film Tetra Vaal (2004); which by the way served as the basis for Chappie. So far, Blomkamp hasn’t let me down as a director, looking forward to his future films. It’s fantastic to count with a director who so far has totally devoted himself to the science fiction genre, haven’t had one of those in quite some time.  

Rating: 4 out of 5 

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

Title:  X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

Director: Bryan Singer

Cast: Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Halle Berry, Nicholas Hoult, Anna Paquin, Ellen Page, Peter Dingklage, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Famke Janssen, James Mardsen, Kelsey Grammer

So this is to be the end all be all of all X-Men movies, reuniting characters seen in all previous X-Men films, from the first trilogy, to X-Men: First Class. The story this time is based on the famous Chris Claremont/John Byrne storyline that ran through The Uncanny X-Men #141 and 142. Many comic book fans consider this storyline one of the greatest Marvel Comics ever made. I mean, it’s easy to understand why. A lot of important characters die, the whole idea that mutants are being wiped out like flies is a scary one, drawing parallels with fascism. It’s a story that touches upon many important themes. Racism, bigotry, xenophobia, you get the drill. So anyhow, here comes the film based on the famous tale; did it do it justice?

One of the greatest Marvel Comics ever made; The Uncanny X-Men #141!

                             
For those who haven’t read the story, Days of Future Past starts out in a dark distant future where giant dna-copying robots known as Sentinels go around hunting mutants and eradicating them from the earth, like cockroaches. The idea being that mutants aren’t so special anymore because these Sentinels can copy their dna, and as a result their powers. But wait! The X-Men have figured out a way to send Wolverine back in time to stop the anti-mutant hysteria that started way back in 1973, when the Sentinels where first created. Can Wolverine convince a younger Prof. Xavier to help him stop the events which lead up to the creation of the Sentinels?

Bryan Singer returns to the franchise he helped build with X-Men (2000) and X2 (2003). In a way, Singer has returned to fix the huge mess left by Brett Ratner with X-Men: The Last Stand (2006); a film that changed X-Men cannon by killing off important characters as if they didn’t matter. I can almost hear Ratner saying “Kill Prof. Xavier? Sure! Let the next guy deal with it, meanwhile I’ll have a movie that everyone will talk about because important characters die!” That next guy ended up being Bryan Singer, picking up the pieces, trying to make things make sense again, trying to make order out of chaos. So it’s no surprise that Days of Future Past has a couple of surprises in store for X fans! In many ways, it’s great to have Singer back in the helm. I mean, so far, he’s the director that has handled these films the best, so it’s kind of comforting to know the material will be treated with some dignity and respect.

In Days of Future Past there are so many characters appearing on screen at the same time, that unless you’re a diehard X-men fan, you probably won’t know who the hell is who at times. Who’s that guy with fire coming out of his chest? Or that mutant opening portals? I don’t know, but it sure is cool! That’s one of the things I’ve always enjoyed about the X-Men comics, the multitude of characters, each with their own amusing ability. Having this whole mess of mutants running around using their powers and kicking the hell out of each other is fun times in my book. On this particular X-Men flick we get to meet many mutants we hadn’t seen before, like Quicksilver, whom you might have gotten a glimpse of during the final moments of Thor: The Dark World (2013). And by the way, speaking of Quicksilver, he was the one character everyone was all worried about. “He looks funny, he doesn’t look right” Whatever! He’s the guy who steals the movie! Quicksilver only appears for a short period of time, but damn, Quicksilver’s moment to shine is so cool that I don’t think the film every reached that level of awesomeness again. The film reached its peak somewhere around the middle of the film and it was all thanks to Quicksilver.

For all you comic book purists out there, well, you know they tweaked things around a bit. I guess the most notable change to the story is that Kitty Pride is not the one who goes back in time, it’s Wolverine. Every book to film translation suffers from changes for the sake of being more cinematic or exciting, so its understandable why they chose to make Wolverine the main character instead of Kitty Pride (like in the comics) or Bishop (like in the cartoons); considering Wolverine is the most popular X-Man ever, it kind of makes sense. In a sea of characters, some are bound to get lost in the shuffle and the one that got the least amount of attention in my book was Storm who is in the film for about 5 minutes total…or maybe less. Other characters only cameo and others you’ll see in some outstanding action sequence, and never see them again. But this is the nature of the beast. X-Men has always been a comic propelled by the idea that this is a group of super heroes and with so many characters in its roster, it stands to reason that the spotlight will shine on a different one with each story. In a future movie, who knows, maybe it won’t revolve around Wolverine so much. I mean, there are so many other characters to focus on. Still, with such a huge cast, I have to give Bryan Singer some props for not letting this turn into a total cluster fuck of a film.

At the end of the day, this film is a spectacle, a huge comic book movie with top notch special effects work, tons of action and many mutants to keep you entertained. Is it the best X-Men film ever made? I don't know, I guess time will tell on that one, but I will say that it's a very satasfying film. My only complaint would be that I wish they’d showed us more of the dark future world where the film starts out in. That part of the story is supposed to be very post apocalyptic, but alas we only get a glimpse of it. Aside, from that, I’m a happy geek boy with this movie. Of course the story brought to mind many time travel films, but the first I drew comparisons to was The Terminator (1984), because of the whole idea of going back in time to stop something from happening. By now everybody expects an extra ending at the end of all of these superhero movies. Disney has been doing this “extra ending” thing for a while now with great success. It’s a great thing in my book because it keeps the spirit of comic books alive. Comics have always been about the “to be continued” at the end of the comic, the cliffhanger to make you come back for next issue, or in this case, the next film. So yeah, now 20^th Century Fox is copying this technique in their Marvel movies, and it makes all the sense in the world to me. Trust me, stay after the credits! Then go on the internet and find out who the hell Apocalypse is. Looking forward to X-Men: Apocalypse come 2016!

Rating: 4 out of 5

The Wolverine (2013)

Title: The Wolverine (2013)

Director: James Mangold

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Famke Janssen, Tao Okamoto, Rila Fukushima, Svetlana Khodchenkova, Hal Yamanouchi

The Wolverine is the summer movie that slipped by me, it was not a top priority in my list because there were so many other summer flicks that seemed more mind blowing, I figured I’d get to it eventually. The trailers hadn’t blown me away and to be honest, I didn’t think it was going to be good, I guess it had something to do with how much I loathed X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), the last Wolverine solo movie. You know, the crappy one, the one that should’ve never happened. Well, I am happy to report that this latest Wolverine movie completely ignores that last film, the story basically unfolds as if that last Wolverine film had never happened. And I am also happy to report that The Wolverine is a solid film, a good Wolverine movie at freaking last! All you need to know is that you should see this one as a continuation of X-Men: The Last Stand (2009). So what exactly made The Wolverine not suck?

This time around we meet up with Wolverine as he is trying to forget his connections with the X-Men; he can’t deal with the fact that he essentially killed the love of his life, Jean Grey in X-Men: The Last Stand (2009), so he’s gone off to Canada to live a life of solitude, disconnected from everyone. He’s still a do gooder, but he wants to be left alone. Unfortunately for him, the past won’t let him be. You see, in 1945, during the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Wolverine saved a soldier named Yashida from the atomic blast. The man feels a debt with Logan, and so as Yashida lies in his death bed, he wants to see Logan one last time, to thank him for having saved his life. But Yashida wants more than to thank Wolverine. As it happens, after Logan saved his life, Yashida  ended up becoming the head honcho of a major corporation that specializes in technological advances and so, Yashida wants to use this high tech to somehow extract Wolverines healing factor. The problem is that extracting Logan’s healing factor would kill him. Yashida thinks Logan will agree because Logan sees his immortality as ‘a curse’. The question arises: will Logan agree to do the process, or will he find a reason to continue living?

The first thing that worried me about this film was James Mangold directing. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing because Mangold has directed some decent films in his time, Copland (1997), Girl Interrupted (1999) and 3:10 to Yuma (2007) come to mind, but in my opinion he is not one of those directors who has a distinctive style or anything, he doesn’t put a stamp on his films. Plus, I mean we had Darren Aronofsky almost direct this one and that prospect got me jazzing my pants. Sadly, it never came to be and we got Mangold, a director I see as a ‘directors for hire’, kind of like Joe Johnston. These are directors who do a good job of directing a film, it will look great, it’ll tell it’s story, but the film wont have a stamp on it, it wont be unique in any way. These directors simply do their job as directors, they follow the studios requests and voila! a product is sold. If I had to say something distinguishes a Mangold film is that he gets good performances out of his actors, he focuses on the characters and the story, which of course is a good thing on any film,  and in the end its something that benefits this particular film, because Wolverine is a character that's begging to be explored.

Good thing is that on this film we get to know Logan better than any other X-Men or Wolverine film that’s been released. This movie is not just one action sequence to the next, or one crappy cgi filled moment to the next, nope, on this one we spend some quality time with the character. Kudos to the writers for coming up with some really cool moments in terms of things that can happen to Wolverine, as a comic book geek, I was enthralled with some of the events that unfold here, not gonna spoil it though! The film does a good balancing act between character development and solid action. Ever wanted to see Wolverine battling a bunch of ninjas? You’ll see it here. Ever wanted to see Wolverine go up against an atomic bomb? It happens here. There’s this awesome sequence where a bunch of bad guys chase Logan on top of a bullet train, cool stuff. Exciting! But we are not left without the more introspective moments, moments were we see Logan falling in love anew or moments when Logan remembers the love of his life, Jean Grey. Also, this is the first film of all these X-Men/Wolverine films that made me realize that essentially Logan's an immortal? Kind of like  Highlander (1986)? They really put a focus on this aspect of the character which they hadn't done so much before, so we get Logan dealing with some of the issues that an immortal has to deal with, like watching his loved ones die. 

The only complain I might have is that it was a bit too similar thematically speaking to films like Prometheus (2012) and Blade Runner (1982), because all these films are about a person close to death that’s searching for eternal life, which brings the movie down a notch in terms of originality, but aside from that? It’s all cool in my book. The villains were cool, I have to admit I loved the way they depicted ‘Viper’ the snake lady with the poisonous tongue…cool character, truly a threat to Logan. Hugh Jackman as Wolverine was great, this is the sixth time he has portrayed the character, and well, by now he’s got it down flat. This Wolverine is a bit closer to what Wolverine is like in his solo stories, alone, depressed  and pissed off, always on the edge. I still have to wonder what Darren Aronofsky would have done with the character, Aronofsky ended up not directing because he wrote a script that was too ‘R’ rated, and much darker in tone, the studio didn’t want to mess with their kid friendly golden calf, so Aronofsky dropped out. With this kind of film, the studio wants it to be PG-13 because they want to aim it at kids,  and Aronofsky didn’t want to make a kids film, he wanted to make a serious take on the character. I’d say that Mangold managed to deliver the goods for the studio (the film still ended up being PG-13) but at the same time, it’s not all that kid friendly, its PG-13 but it’s not strawberry shortcake. I mean, Wolverine is spewing profanities left and right on this one. Wolverine says bitch, asshole, he says shit quite a few times…and finally he utters the king of all profanities “fuck” on one occasion, because that’s what the MPAA allows on a PG-13 film. You get to say one fuck, so you better use it wisely! I guess this was the studios version of giving the film an ‘edge’. There’s also a scene in which Wolverine walks in on a bad guy as he is with a bunch of prostitutes walking around in their underwear, but that’s as far as the “edge” on this film goes. Bottom line is that maybe some scenes might be a bit too much for little kids.

Ninjas always make any movie that much cooler

And speaking of little kids, I saw this one on a packed theater filled with little kids! It was a cool experience because I got to see a bunch of kids hollering and cheering for Wolverine every time he did something cool or heroic, I mean I actually saw this little kid super excited during the train sequence, it took me back to when I was a little kid. At the same time, I saw another little kid next to me say something like “enough!” when the movie got a little too talky. What us adults call character development bores the hell out of the kids. So anyways, that’s my two cents on The Wolverine, not a bad movie at all, not the piece of crap I was expecting and it’s a million times better than X-Men Origins: Wolverine. One more thing, after the movie is over, wait for the extra ending that will have you salivating for the upcoming X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), which will reunite the X-Men from the past and the future in one gigantic, orgasmic comic book movie. This film will mark the return of Bryan Singer to the X-Men franchise which he helped launch with the highly successful X-Men (2000) and X2 (2003). Anxiously awaiting that one, it looks promising!

Rating: 4 out of 5  

Les Miserables (2012)

Title: Les Miserables (2012)

Director:  Tom Hooper

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, Russell Crowe, Amanda Seyfried, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter

Review:

Poverty stricken times call forth films about poverty stricken people and no other film is more suitable for today’s borderline depression era days than Les Miserables, a film that truly explores the sadness and desperation that comes with being less fortunate, actually, to be more accurate it truly wallows in it. But I’m of the mind that even the sadder parts of life have to be explored, life is bitter sweet and to say that life is all peaches and cream simply isn’t true. There’s a lot of sadness out there in the world we live in and it is important we talk about these sad parts of life, it is important that we don’t ignore the darker issues, for how are things to get better if we ignore problems? Les Miserables focuses in on one of the saddest elements of society: extreme poverty.

On this one we meet Jean Valjean, an ex-con who went to jail for stealing bread. On the particular day we meet Valjean he is set free and tries looking for a regular job, but due to the fact that he’d been in jail, he gets rejected left and right. He soon ends up in a church, screaming at god in anger, asking God why his life so miserable. But then a twist of fate makes Valjean reconsider his life and so he decides to reinvent himself and a few years later, Valjean becomes the owner of a sewing factory. Unbeknownst to him, Fantine, one of his female employees gets fired for no good reason. Unable to care for her little baby child, Fantine ends up on the streets, selling her body in the seediest parts of town. It isn’t long before death comes knocking at Fantines door and Valjean, feeling guilty for her death swears to take care of Fantine’s little baby daughter,  Cosette. What happens when Cosette grows up and wants to live her life, apart from Valjean? 

Right away, from frame one you know this movie is epic; we see Jean Valjean and hundreds of other prisoners pulling a boat into shore with ropes as they sing, and I just knew this one was going to be special. First thing you notice when you see this film is that the actors are singing for real, the songs aren’t dubbed or pre-recorded, which takes a little getting used to because normally musicals pre-record every song and actors are simply lip-synching as they sing and dance, but not on Les Miserables; here the actors really sing on set, live and this is the way you’ll hear it. I was pretty blown away by Jackman and Hathaway specifically, but really, everybody does a bang up job here. Anne Hathaway sings a song that just might bring you to tears, and win her an Oscar. I’d say maybe Russell Crowe was the only one a little off at times, but even he did a commendable job. So be ready for a musical that feels just a little bit more realistic then others, every breath, every sob between songs is heard, the pain and the feeling in the performances is projected more efficiently because of this technique.

As I watched this version of Les Miserables, I noticed how similar the story is to films like Annie (1982) and Oliver! (1968). All of these films are musicals and all three are about little orphan kids living in poverty. All three films have kids living with horrible step parents who want to take advantage of the child, and in all three films, the child is rescued by a genuinely good person looking to give the child a chance at a better life. But I guess in scope and tone, Les Miserables is closest to Oliver! The only thing that makes Les Miserables a bit different then these other two films is the element of romance, a love triangle that developes and the French revolution! The people of France in Les Miserables are on the verge of rebellion and this theme of the oppressed being sick and tired of being treated like garbage is an important one on this film because the misery of the people is often simply a reflection of what’s going on with its government. Are people just gonna sit back and let their government trample them? Or are they willing to die fighting for their freedom? Interesting themes no doubt. I found the character of Javert, the policeman following Valjean interesting. He is torn between serving the government and doing what his human side is telling him is right. This character has an interesting duality there.

The Oscar nominations are in and both Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway have been nominated for their work on this film, which isn’t really a surprise. Les Miserables has also been nominated for Film of the Year, so this lets you know there is something special about this film. Plus with a cast like this one, wow, who wants to miss this show? Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonhan Carter who worked together previously in Tim Burton’s Sweeny Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) reunite here with great comical effect, playing the evil step parents of poor little Collette. But screw the Oscars, The Film Connoisseur is telling you this one is awesome, a cinematic experience of the highest caliber; a film that will move you to tears. Not to be missed!

Rating: 5 out of 5