Hugh Jackman does do a very good job. Honestly, the acting is fine all-around, including a pair of quite impressive child actors; it's not the actors' faults if some of their characters are so lacking in depth. If Hathaway stands out as much as she does, it's only her own merit up to a certain point; part of it is simply that her character Fantine is the best part to play, and gets to sing the most iconic song ("I Dreamed a Dream".

Yeah. Well, I love the Phantom of the Opera musical, and so if that movie had converted all those lines to non-singing, that might have irritated me. I suppose Les Mis fans would have felt the same way in this case, but in any case, you would no doubt be annoyed in this case as well then.

I readily admit my review is to a large extent criticizing points that probably are the musical's fault, not the movie adaptation's. If you're a Les Mis fan like Bookwyrm, I can readily imagine that you find this a very good adaptation - visually it's all great, the acting is good, and most (but not all) of the singing is between tolerable and quite good.

If I go to see Passion later on, I'll let you know what I think of that one.