Les Miserables
Universal Pictures | Release Date: December 25, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
63
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 41 Critic Reviews
Positive:
24
Mixed:
15
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzDec 25, 2012
If you like your musicals enormous, over the top and bang-on-the-head manipulative, Les Miserables is the movie for you.
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinDec 11, 2012
The tasteless bombardment that is Les Misérables would, under most circumstances, send audiences screaming from the theater, but the film is going to be a monster hit and award winner, and not entirely unjustly. Read full review
60
MovielineAlison WillmoreDec 10, 2012
Even at a generous running time that matches this season's other giant award candidates, Les Misérables seems like it's in a hurry, skittering from one number to the next without interlude. After Hathaway's early high point, it starts to feel numbing, an unending barrage of musical emoting carrying us through Valjean's adopting of Cosette, the latter's first encounter with Marius, the battle at the barricade and a last hour that can feel like it's a non-stop series of death arias. Read full review
60
The GuardianCatherine ShoardDec 6, 2012
By the end, you feel like a piñata: in pieces, the victim of prolonged assault by killer pipes. Read full review
50
SlateDana StevensJan 1, 2013
We're all familiar with the experience of seeing movies that cram ideas and themes down our throats. Les Misérables may represent the first movie to do so while also cramming us down the throats of its actors. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony LaneDec 31, 2012
It's a relief to see Sacha Baron Cohen, in the role of a seamy innkeeper, bid goodbye to Cosette with the wistful words "Farewell, Courgette." One burst of farce, however, is not enough to redress the basic, inflationary bombast that defines Les Misérables. Fans of the original production, no doubt, will eat the movie up, and good luck to them. I screamed a scream as time went by. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleDec 26, 2012
Fans of Les Misérables wouldn't have minded if the movie were different, but better, or just as effective. The screen version demanded some reconception, some vision to make sense of its existence. Instead, we're left with a film that is conscientious in all its particulars and yet strangely and mysteriously dead. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsDec 25, 2012
Fans of the franchise will greet Les Misérables as a feast for the senses, but the rest of us are left with crumbs. Read full review
50
The New York TimesManohla DargisDec 25, 2012
Song after song, as relationships and rebellion bloom, you wait in vain for the movie to, as well, and for the filmmaking to rise to the occasion of both its source material and its hard-working performers. Read full review
50
IndieWireEric KohnDec 23, 2012
Hooper's approach comes across as the equivalent of sitting in the front row of a stage play while the entire cast leans forward and blares each song into your eardrums. Read full review
50
Village VoiceScott FoundasDec 18, 2012
For the more Hooper tries - and oh, how he tries, ratcheting the filth amp to 11 and shooting almost everything with an arsenal of wide-angled, handheld cameras - the more the moist-eyed storybook romanticism of the source material proves resilient to his efforts. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumDec 12, 2012
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. Read full review
50
TimeRichard CorlissDec 11, 2012
Sensitive souls in search of wrenching emotion can be guaranteed their Kleenex moments; you will get wet. But aside from that opening scene, you will not be cinematically edified. This is a bad movie. Read full review
50
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezDec 6, 2012
While 'Les Mis' ends terrifically, it cannot make up for the largely uneven experience that comes before it. There is no doubt an abundance of passion and commitment in Les Miserables but when the musical isn't connecting emotionally -- which is at least half the time -- it's a lot of blustering sound and fury that could either use a dialogue break or an edit. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyDec 6, 2012
As the enduring success of this property has shown, there are large, emotionally susceptible segments of the population ready to swallow this sort of thing, but that doesn't mean it's good. Read full review
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