( EW.com ) -- Since everything about Les Misérables is fortissimo — including but not limited to its unabashed pursuit of awards that are shiny or globular or both — you have perhaps already heard a little about the movie now storming the Bastille of your wallet . You may already know that to make his movie adaptation of the internationally popular theatrical musical conjured from the 19th-century political novel by Victor Hugo , director Tom Hooper ( The King 's Speech ) bade his actors sing live during filming . You probably already know that Anne Hathaway , as the wretched single mother-turned-prostitute Fantine , is reputedly a formidable Oscar favorite for her sobbing and warbling and haircutting-in-real-time . You 've learned , from posters and trailers , that Hugh Jackman , as former convict Jean Valjean , looks impressively stricken and that Russell Crowe , as implacable police inspector Javert , looks disconcertingly dyspeptic . What 's left to learn is this : Les Misérables provides compelling reasons for Crowe to be peeved , beginning with the humiliation of having to sing Broadway-style , when it clearly is so not his thing , and ending with the Cap ' n Crunch wardrobe into which the gentleman is packed . ( O , for Crowe 's costumed glory days in Master and Commander : The Far Side of the World ! ) Jackman has a right to be cranky too , although he 's too much of a trouper to show it as he overemotes on demand and sings of finding God after he steals a pair of candlesticks from a nice priest . ( Long story . ) Hathaway looks happy enough channeling Liza Minnelli for her tremulous rendition of the Susan Boyle-appropriated anthem `` I Dreamed a Dream , '' but that 's no doubt because she knows that soon after the song , she 's pretty much done for the night . Shall I go on about all the ways in which this fake-opulent Les Miz made me long for guillotines while millions of viewers who have softer , more generous hearts than I may swoon with money's-worth contentment ? ( At least it does n't skimp on length : The movie is approximately as long as the 1832 Paris uprising it depicts . ) Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter mug and prance as the comic-relief grifters Thénardier and his missus , outfitted in what has become de rigueur for both BCs — Pétrouchka makeup and prosthetically grungy teeth . Amanda Seyfried and Eddie Redmayne play the young lovers Cosette ( Fantine 's muppet daughter , raised by Valjean ) and the boy-band-styled student revolutionary Marius like lab rats , their pale faces and lashless eyelids often observed in the merciless close-up that is one of Hooper 's mix-it-up signature shots . ( He is similarly devoted to tilted perspective and the room-at-a-45-degree-angle shot . ) It 's a daunting challenge , to be sure , to turn a big musical into a viable movie . For every great Cabaret , My Fair Lady , and The King and I , there 's a dud Rent , Evita , and Mamma Mia ! But this steam-driven military weapon of an enterprise is a sobering reminder of just how tinny a musical Les Misérables was in the first place — the listless music and lyrics by Alain Boubil , Claude-Michel Schönberg , and Herbert Kretzmer , the derivative characters fashioned from Oliver ! scraps . And even if you do come to Mr. Hooper 's neighborhood loving the show , having seen seven stage productions and named your cat Gavroche after the urchin who hitches his fate to those of grown-up revolutionaries , well , you 're in for a gobsmacking : This `` prestige '' production is at heart a minor road-show carnival , leaving behind little but tinsel as it rumbles through the streets of Awardstown . Grade : C. See original story at EW.com . CLICK HERE to Try 2 RISK FREE issues of Entertainment Weekly . © 2011 Entertainment Weekly and Time Inc. All rights reserved .
The film is an adaptation of the 19th-century political novel by Victor Hugo . It stars Anne Hathaway , Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman . In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, director Baz Luhrmann said that he was inspired to make this movie after reading the book in high school.