2. Look Down - Les Miserables
Not as much a singular "movie moment" as an incredibly long-awaited movie built around a daring new idea, Tom Hooper's filmic adaptation of the popular stage musical
Les Miserables proved itself to be a grande but ultimately bombastic helping of cinematic endeavour. And though the movie was visually impressive, it was the live singing (actors recorded their songs live on set) that really brought this musical to its knees, mainly because most of the cast just weren't up the challenge. I'm looking at you, Russell Crowe (and even Hugh Jackman, to a degree).
Les Miserables is somewhat exhausting as it is, but listening to actors with mediocre voices singing their way through nearly 50 songs proved to be something close to overkill. In the build-up to
Les Miserables' release, I was equally excited about how the live singing aspect would make for a more realistic and appropriately gritty film, but ultimately I only found it to be distracting and hard on the ears. So take the first scene in the movie ("Look Down") as the long-awaited moment that failed to meet the hype in this case, where lots of fans suddenly realised that the musical was not going to be able to enchant us in the same ways as the stage version.