Movie review: The Phantom of the Opera

I've been a fan of this musical since I first heard the soundtrack when I was little. I saw the stage production a few years ago. I was curious to see how this movie would stack up, nearly twenty years after the show was born.

The first obvious change from the original show is the character of the Phantom. Michael Crawford played him as a middle aged, pasty, bulky and lurking character. His music is really his only attraction - and to that end he has a fabulous voice. In this movie, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Joel Schumacher have changed tack. Gerard Butler is a younger, tanned, and basically sexy phantom - but his voice is lacking the power and polish needed for the role. Inconsistencies aside, I found his magnetism gave the movie extra emotional pull, as it's very easy to feel sympathy for this more attractive phantom, who just happens to have a scarred face and murders a few people here and there.

While we're on the face - how come Gerard's hair is perfectly styled on both sides all throughout the film, but at the end a great deal of it disappears into scars? *shrug* And why does Meg suddenly appear in tight leather pants at the end? Oh well.

I thought that Emmy Rossum was fabulous as Christine, and Raoul (Patrick Wilson) was pretty good too. Minnie Driver was hilarious. Miranda Richardson was creepy but maternal at the same time. I found myself cringing during the portrayal of the back story - the freak show was a bit too much for me - but I suppose they thought it was necessary to impart how horrible people were to the phantom in his youth.

The music was pretty much the same as the original, except they took to speaking a lot of previously sung lines. In parts where the phantom is supposed to perform magic in the original (appearing suddenly, or taking over people's voices), the tricks were given logical explanations. Instead of lurking, this phantom leaps about and plunges down trapdoors.

In summary - loved the film, in the end deciding I like the new take on the phantom's character. If you like musicals, you'll love it.

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