Adam Lambert: ‘Les Mis’ actors are pretending to be singers’

The new musical film “Les Misérables,” which just ended a relatively successful first weekend in the box office ($28 million).

The film, which is based on Victor Hugo’s famous book and has already been adapted to a popular musical, received generally good reviews from critics, but one very vocal negative review from Adam Lambert.

Lambert, a musician, musical theater performer and an “American Idol” finalist, didn’t like the fact that director Tom Hooper chose to sing the famous tracks live on the set instead of in the studio, in order to increase the emotion of the songs, so took his frustration with the film to Twitter:

Les Mis: Visually impressive w great Emotional performances. But the score suffered massively with great actors PRETENDING to be singers.

— Adam Lambert (@adamlambert) December 30, 2012

…it’s an opera. Hollywoods movie musicals treat the singing as the last priority. (Dreamgirls was good) — Adam Lambert (@adamlambert) December 30, 2012

I felt like I should ignore the vocals and focus on the emotional subtext- but the singing was so distracting at times it pulled me out. — Adam Lambert (@adamlambert) December 30, 2012

The industry will say “these actors were so brave to attempt singing this score live”but why not cast actors who could actually sound good?

— Adam Lambert (@adamlambert) December 30, 2012

Lambert performed in the Broadway productions of “The Ten Commandments: The Musical” and “Wicked.”

Russel Crowe, who stars as Javert in “Les Mis,” responded on Twitter, claiming that he “doesn’t disagree” with Lambert:

@brunettemom123 @adamlambert I don’t disagree with Adam,sure it could have been sweetened,Hooper wanted it raw and real,that’s how it is

— Russell Crowe (@russellcrowe) January 2, 2013