Feb 3rd
Les Miserables** (12A)         
(Odeon Colchester)

Convicted criminal Jean Valjean and others suffer misery at the hands of tyrannical lawmakers.
The long running Cameron Mackintosh musical finally gets its cinema adaptation, quite successfully with the actors singing on-set (instead of pre-recording). Like Sweeney Todd, a musical which is an opera in all but name, marginalising its central plot strand of the pursuance of Valjean by Inspector Javert (an underrated and underused Russell Crowe). Good for fans of the stage musical, but the 1935 Hollywood version with Fredric March and Charles Laughton still remains the definitive article.

d: Tom Hooper
s: Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne, Helena Bonham Carter, Sacha Baron Cohen, Colin Wilkinson