The Movie: Victor Hugo's Les Misérables is one of the most often made into film books of all time. IMDB counts 22 movies, two TV movies, one made for video movie, and three mini-series versions, dating from as far back to 1909 to as recently as the year 2000. It would suffice to say that any story that warrants being put to film this many times must be pretty darned good.

Amazingly enough, I managed to escape my school-aged years without ever reading this book. So yes, this 1998 film version starring Liam Neeson was the first experience of this story for this uncultured member of the bastard generation of MTV babies. So I can't tell you how it rates compared to the book. Or the musical, or any of the other films.

So what do we got? Well, not surprisingly, it is a pretty good story. You got your ex-con who has really turned his life around, and made a name for himself as a truly respected and generous man of the people. Only problem is, this name he's made for himself is an assumed one, and there's one wretched man who, perhaps motivated by jealousy, or something, has dedicated his life exposing this double-identity, and ruining the now seemingly perfect life of this ex-con.

I've seen the book. It's really thick. But the movie isn't all that long, not much longer than two hours. So I don't know how much stuff it cuts out. But on it's own, this movie has enough drama in it to keep things interesting the whole time, and it's worth watching for its treatment of such time honored themes as loyalty, family, secrets, treachery, and of course, love. Hey, if these themes were good enough to keep audiences from the last few millennia on the edges of their seats, it's good enough for us today, right?

The acting is pretty good too, and wow, did they ever make Uma Thurman look ugly in this picture. Of course, she was supposed to be all sick and junk. Highly effective. And of course, Claire Danes is always nice to look at. So yeah. It's a pretty good movie, even if I've got no idea about the book.

The DVD: This video transfer on this DVD doesn't have a lot going for it. It's not bad enough to call it bad, but it's clearly not as good as what even an average new release looks like today. There's a general lack of clarity and a dullness of color that is exacerbated by the dreary look the film was going for in the first place. The quality of the audio was at right about the same level. Just plain average.

The lone special feature on this disc is a theatrical trailer, which I think gives away too much, but then again, how can you really give away too much of a story that you're already supposed to have read a long time ago? I mean, we all should already know that Romeo and Juliet kill themselves in the end of their story.