Director: Joel Schumacher
Cast:
The Phantom: Gerard Butler
Christine Daae: Emmy Rossum
Raoul: Patrick Wilson
Carlotta: Minnie Driver
Madame Giry: Miranda Richardson
Summary:
It’s 1870, set amongst a beautiful and elegant opera house, that seems to be haunted by a menacing Opera Ghost, a disfigured bleeding heart prodigy. Christine Daae is a regular choir girl, until the “ghost” takes it upon himself to teach her how to sing like an angel, and wants her to star in every opera at the theater. The two new owners don’t want to lose their current star, Carlotta, and so they go against the Phantom’s wishes. It becomes a quiet war at the theater, with Christine Daae caught in a web of romance and danger, amongst lots of singing and fueding.
Review:
First of all, I have to mention that I grew up with The Phantom of the Opera. When I was about 10 years old, I got a tape of the musical, and I listened to it several dozens of times, maybe even in the hundreds. I know the musical by heart, and went through a lot of ridicule by my fellow classmates in school for listening to ‘opera’, and ever since then I’ve been a huge fan of musicals as a whole. I’ve seen Phantom four times, and even loved the soundtrack enough to not shy away from the abysmal and nasal voicings of Sarah Brightman as Christine. I detest her voice! I feel that Michael Crawford as the Phantom on the soundtrack is the best, and I grew to like Phantom more each time I listened to it.
It’s not my favorite musical (Miss Saigon still holds that title), but it’s one of my favorites, and one of the first I’ve ever heard. I was glad to see that it was going to be a movie, and that it was to be based off the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. I was kind of hesitant after knowing that the director of Batman and Robin - one of the worst movies ever made, and yes it’s almost entirely Schumacher’s fault!!! – was to direct. However, if it stayed true to the source, it couldn’t go THAT badly… could it?
Phantom of the Opera is almost verbatim from the musical. It starts with the same lines, and it was actually kind of unnerving thinking in my head “… and now lot number 665, a pap-ee-herr mehr-say musical box in the shape of a barrel organ. Attached, the figure of a monkey in Persian robes playing the symbols. This item, discovered in the vaults of the theater, still in working order…” “showing here…”
… and have it spit back to me onscreen, word for word. Making Phantom almost completely faithful to the musical is part of its’ downfall. There is virtually no SOUND during the entire runtime; it is almost all music. It’s fine if you’re watching it live in a musical theater, because things are so much more encompassing and engrossing (and louder, typically) when you’re seeing it live. However, when you’re sitting in a movie theater, watching a screen, you have to take liberties to make a musical fit more appropriately to the film medium. It seems like Schumacher felt the movie would stand on its’ own merit by the music and look alone. I would have to disagree. Too much of it was like watching a music video – not a musical OR a movie – thanks to the lack of other sounds caressing my ears. Did he even hire any foley artists? If I wanted to listen to the soundtrack with no sound effects, I’d get the CD.
The look of the movie is obviously taken from the colorful and somewhat gaudy excess of the stage version, with a little bit of some Moulin Rouge rip-offs and ‘Schumacher’-isms thrown in for good measure. I would say that 85% looks just like the musical. There were some really really stupid elements thrown in for the movie, such as the dancing flamenco wierdos wearing black during "Point of No Return", or the stupid mime-like vogue dance that some Uber-stupid looking dude danced at the top of the stairs during "Masquerade" - what the hell was that? Yuck!
The set design is interesting. It’s a mixture between the look of the live musical versus the soundstage look of Hollywood. A lot of the visuals are too pretty, such as the perfectly placed snowfall on the statues in the cemetary during “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again”. Many times it looked like a matte painting, but that’s ok – it’s fantasy! Overall, the look was very nice. It contains a lot of eye candy. The opening scene shows the transformation of the theater from a black and white 1919 future flashback, to a complete color restoration to the flashback of 1870 in which the chunk of the movie takes place. This is a nicely done moment, and it’s a great way to set the scene.
Emmy Rossum was fantastic as Christine. Her voice is wonderful, and she’s got a great face and mid-riff, so my eyes weren’t diverted much while she was onscreen. Raoul isn’t a very strong character, but Patrick Wilson’s voice sounds great, and he’s good enough to give life to the little that Raoul does for the musical, which is basically be the love interest and conflict for Christine. Minnie Driver was great as Carlotta, playing it more heavy-handed than what I was expecting. I thought she was not going to be a good choice, and I was proven wrong.
As for Gerard Butler as the Phantom… this is where I have my misgivings. As a singer, he’s not very good. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I can sing better than him. He has a very limited range, and some sequences that require him to hit the higher notes just come out thin, and/or sounds like he’s yelling the note, not singing it. He even warbles unevenly a couple of times. He doesn’t pair well with Rossum vocally, and because Rossum’s voice is so much more refined, it helps expose Butler’s flaws more painfully.
I like Crawford’s Phantom more in the vocals, but acting-wise Gerard played The Phantom with more silent emotion. Lucky for Butler, he can express his subtle emotions onscreen a lot easier than onstage because we can see an extreme closeup on what he’s thinking, and that worked to his advantage. He’s a very handsome man. It’s funny to think that people would want to shrink back at his disfigurement once he takes the mask off, because he’s actually not that scary looking even without his mask on! But because I didn’t care much for his voice, he couldn’t express musically a lot of the emotional distress required in a few key scenes. What’s worse is that he didn’t scream out passionately when Christine rips his mask off and he starts cursing her for it. Instead, he quietly sings his anger, which really fell flat and sucked away the power of the moment. There were numerous times where I wanted to just take over and scream in the theater what he merely spoke – or whispered – onscreen. This isn’t entirely his fault, though. I can’t blame him for the casting call; it’s a great part for an awesome musical!
When all was said and done, and I left the theater, I was half satisfied. I liked it enough thanks to my previous attachment to the material, but it played a little too slow for onscreen prescence, and I felt that they were too afraid to add more of a cinematic element to the musical, which was done wonderfully in Chicago. I love Chicago, which in my opinion is a near perfect example of musical to film conversion.
For Phantom of the Opera, I liked it, but wish they would have worked harder at making a cinematic experience than just a hybrid musical on film with a more impressive set design. It could have been a LOT worse. In fact, I am glad that Schumacher didn’t go the Starlight Express route with Phantom. When I look at a lot of Batman & Robin - especially Mr. Freeze – I think of Starlight Express, the horribly out dated but amusing roller skating Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. I can thank Schumacher for not going so far as to ruin Phantom with Christmas light suits and roller skates, at least!
Grade (the musical): A-
Grade (the movie): C
"Starlight ExpreeeeEEEEssss!!!" - Er, uh, Mr. Freeze!
Reviewed: 12/23/04