I noticed the other day that we have yet another Les Miserables film adaptation coming down the pipe. Do we really need another? I did a quick count over on the Wikipedia entry and I count about a dozen film or television adaptations from all over the world. This does not count the musical that has been running for a bazillion years.

I think we do.

There is something about a loose history lession wrapped around what humans like the most - human drama. This is not Phantom of the Opera which is a decent piece of work (over done, yes) but it has been produced to a point of silliness. Look at Cats - another work that had its day but it really doesn't hold up well. To me, at least. I find that these musicals have a shelf life of about a dozen years. They are done (re-done and re-done) but, at the end of the day, they have played out their stories. The stories become less interesting and far too predictable. I mean, really, such plays are not 2-Headed Shark Attack bad but they do have their own faults. Faults that should be given a rest.

But, Les Miserables is a story about the core values that we all have. We burn brightly when our values are challenged and the story does that. It has a bit of history, a bit of drama - and it all works. I watched the "dream cast" on stage once and it was pretty damn good. It didn't matter that many of the performers were from different cultures and obviously were not French. i didn't care. The Korean Jean Valjean was just as good as the German guy. The story spoke for itself and kept up an interest for me. Granted, if I were to watch it over and over, I would get sick of it.

One more thing. Yes, I did watch 2-Headed Shark Attack. It was terrible. Shark eats an island... nothing more to say.