Before the lights even go down, Tom Hooper's production of Les Miserables is obviously different. That poster -- that iconic poster that has represented the musical for three decades -- it's a human face and not a woodcut. It's a little disturbing. The eyes of Cosette (Isabelle Allen) bore out from behind the glass and say, yes, you will call this an Academy Award nominee.

All hype aside, that is the strength of this production. On stage, Les Miserables is an epic of vast spectacle, condensing a sprawling French novel into three hours of bombastic singing and that turntable stage. But it isn't real; you can't forget that you're watching bravura performances (on good nights anyway).

On screen, Hooper has made the epic intimate. Those power ballads designed to blow off the back wall of the theater have been reversed. We the audience now intrude on moments of despair that can barely be choked into words by the characters.

They're still sung, and most of the actors do justice to the melodies. Some are just so achingly quiet about it, in particular Anne Hathaway as the doomed Fantine; 'I Dreamed a Dream" isn't just sung well; it's believed.

But that also brings up a strong point: if you do not already have an affection for Les Miserables, it's hard to imagine that this film version will change your mind. Though film allows the story to tie together a little more clearly, it's still a pop opera with very little spoken dialogue. All the star power in the world won't change that.

But if you need star power to try, there really aren't better choices than Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe at the center. Without knowing the story, the film establishes right off the bat that these two will be life-long enemies. It also establishes that some tropes are just going to have to be forgiven.

The tragic prisoner Jean Valjean (Jackman) labors in a shipyard, watched over by Javert (Crowe). Before announcing Valjean's freedom, Javert orders him to lift a ship's mast and flag -- thus we establish the rarely used plot point that Valjean is possessed of superhuman strength and a powerful tenor voice.

It does make for a strangely appropriate Christmas movie, as the story is very much about mercy and redemption. Despite having been put away for decades for the simple crime of stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister's child (neither sister nor child ever appear), no one will hire Valjean once they find out he was a convict. Should he be forgiven?

A kindly Bishop (played by the original production's Jean Valjean, Colm Wilkinson) thinks so, setting Valjean on the path to start a new life, but only after an Oscar-baiting dark night of the soul for Jackman to sing and weep and gnash his teeth. I mock, but it is powerful.

Flash forward to the fall of Fantine, an employee of the disguised Valjean who is fired on trumped up gossip. Too late, he realizes that he has not shown the Christian charity that saved him, and though he cannot save Fantine, he can save her daughter Cosette, she who stares out balefully from the poster.

The young waif has been left in the care of Mrs. Lovett and Pirelli, here renamed the Thenardiers, but still played as broad refugees from Tim Burton's version of the story by Helena Bonham-Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen. To be fair, they're perfectly cast in bringing the characters' energy from the stage; it's just that both of them could do these roles in their sleep. And might have.

Still it moves forward, with Cosette all grown up and played by Amanda Seyfried. Despite being hidden away by her foster father, she has caught the eye of the young nobleman Marius (Eddie Redmayne). Darn the luck, however, as he is also in the midst of fomenting a revolution, and also hasn't noticed that the Thenardier's daughter Eponine (Samantha Barks) is madly in love with him.

The original stage musical and the film both fail at explaining the actual social forces that are leading towards the climactic battle at the barricade. At least film allows for it to be more sweeping and not just a cool piece of scenery. On film, we see the failure of the barricade as something more than a plot convenience; whatever the French are upset about, they're willing to let young men take arms but not help them.

So the conventions of film smooth out some story telling, but the basic flaws are all still there. Though the scenery jumps from place to place, Hooper has left the musical largely intact, which again says to anyone who doesn't like musicals, this isn't going to change your mind.

Hooper has cut one number of the Thenardiers, which makes sense as they're one note characters that don't gain anything by a second song. And original composers Claude-Michel Schonberg and Alain Boubil have added a new number, "Suddenly," sung by Valjean as he comforts a newly rescued Cosette. The boys do need an Oscar bid, after all.

The production design is lush, though Hooper does tend to overdirect. At times, the clever shots get distracting; this film has more Dutch angles than Paul Verhoeven's high school Geometry textbook.

Sometimes the vocal direction gets in the way, too. Maybe it's her natural singing voice, but it seems like Seyfried has been asked to sing like the fairy tale princess Cosette really isn't, The trills are still echoing in my head. Both Jackman and Crowe are pushed into more nasal tones than their singing voices have been elsewhere. In Jackman's case it doesn't hurt too much, but Crowe always feels like he's being forced to hold back somehow.

It might have been more interesting for them to swap roles. For all his tough guy qualities, Crowe also exudes a sense of woundedness. If Javert deserves such sensitivity, the script does not offer any clues.

Still, it's hard not to give in to a performance as charismatic as Jackman's, and breakouts like Barks and Redmayne. It's not quite a family movie for the holidays, but its audience will find it.

Derek McCaw