The first big scene in this film version of the world's biggest stage musical is really quite, well, big. It involves many men - among them, an unrecognisable Hugh Jackman's about-to-be-paroled prisoner Jean Valjean - in a tug of war with a sailing ship they are trying to pull into dry-dock from stormy seas.
It's a grandiose set-piece, which sure says this isn't just the old stage production shifted to a film soundstage. No, here we're in for a sweeping period epic. Only with songs. Lots of songs...
And sweep it does, from that waterfront of 1815 Toulon to the Paris Uprising of 1832, with director Tom Hooper's ambitious production looking, at least, like a grand and grim rendering of Victor Hugo's novel than the stuff of Broadway or West End set design.
Add the director's insistence that his cast sing their parts live in front of the camera, rather than lip-synch to polished studio recordings, and to deliver the entire story without reverting to spoken dialogue and you've got a rare thing: a movie musical that still wants to challenge audience expectations rather than just put on the same old show.
But while doing that, this Les Miserables still falls short of being a movie as great as its ambitions.