LES MISERABLES: left me disconsolate and dispirited

Forget waterboarding, THIS is real torture.
LES MISERABLES is an interminable two and a half hours of singing every single bleeding line that could be condensed into ninety minutes if only the cast would speak their lines instead.
Of course, LES MISERABLES would not then be a musical but it might be more of a viewing pleasure than the painful ordeal it is in its current form.

When I say the cast sing their lines I use the word 'sing' in its loosest form since much of what emits from the mouths of Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Reymayne and Russell Crowe is more like talk-singing slightly speeded up. Their words would sound a whole lot more sensible, plausible and bearable being spoken instead of talk-sung because they are lines of dialogue NOT song lyrics.
And that's only half of the irritation.
Because for the most part these sentences are talk-sung to a completely unhummable tuneless tune. The actor just makes up whatever tune they want when uttering the lines. It's like listening to free-form poetry set to music but without any rhythm, harmony, melody or any other word which might suggest music is being made.

Russell Crowe has come in for particular criticism for his lack of singing ability but as far as I could tell this particular ability is not a pre-requisite for the part he is performing. He sounds no worse than the rest of the cast and certainly has a more masculine style than Eddie Redmayne, who sings like a castrato, which is rarely an appealing trait when playing the juvenile romantic lead.
The insistence on this godawful - and relentless - talk-singing makes it almost impossible to get swept up in the emotion of what is supposed to be a tragic and uplifting story. My overwhelming feelings were of frustration and annoyance coupled with a growing despair that this dimly-lit nightmare would ever end.
There's nothing subtle about LES MISERABLES.
From the star-studded cast talk-singing their hearts out, to the plot - which is little more than a series of highly implausible coincidences strung together with big gaps in time between them during which the characters apparently exist in suspended animation - to the dazzling profusion of computer generated imagery, the film's entire intention appears to be to batter the viewer into submission before expelling them from the movie theater in a state of weeping exhaustion.
Jean Valjean may have thought he had it tough but he should have seen it from the other side of the screen. Out here in the dark, clutching an overpriced tub of popcorn and a 40 ounce bucket of coke, is where the real suffering is taking place.