This is one of those performances that make it easy to predict how the actor is going to look in the Mad magazine parody of the movie. Rush is trying to do something here. There's none of the dark, repressed sexuality that Laughton brought to the role. Rush is talented, but he's been acclaimed as a major actor without having done anything to earn it. There are no depths or surprises here either.
Scenery chewing with a rationale behind it is still scenery chewing.
Everything about it is standard-issue movie epic, from the English accents most of the cast affect to the period sets and costumes that never, for a frame, make you believe you're watching another era. As Fantine's daughter Cosette, Danes never stops working, but her commitment only underscores how phony the whole enterprise is. While the emotions that Danes projects from moment to moment feel real, the whole conception of the pure-hearted Cosette is contrived. The best acting in the movie is from Peter Vaughan as the bishop whose act of generosity turns the embittered Valjean around. You don't hold it against the bishop that Valjean takes his admonition to become a changed man too much to heart.