Release Date: December 22,
2004 (wider release: January 21, 2005) Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures Director: Joel Schumacher
Screenwriter: Andrew Lloyd Webber, Joel Schumacher Starring: Gerard Butler, Emmy Rossum, Patrick Wilson, Miranda
Richardson, Simon Callow, Ciaran Hind, Minnie Driver Genre: Drama, Musical MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for brief violent images) Official Website:
Phantomthemovie.com
Plot Summary: "Andrew Lloyd Webber's The
Phantom of the Opera" tells the story of a disfigured musical genius (Butler)
who haunts the catacombs beneath the Paris Opera, waging a reign of terror over
its occupants. When he falls fatally in love with the lovely Christine (Rossum),
the Phantom devotes himself to creating a new star for the Opera, exerting a
strange sense of control over the young soprano as he nurtures her extraordinary
talents.
Fifteen
years in the making, the movie version of composer Andrew Lloyd Webber’s stage
musical The Phantom of the Opera, will be known by many for its
soundtrack, which has sold over 40 million copies, but less of the public has
not seen the stage production, certainly a motivation to go and watch Joel
Schumacher’s direction of a worldwide theatrical classic if only for the movie’s
production quality and music.
The popularity of Phantom is when it gets so big that
a permanent installation of the musical will open at a hotel in Las Vegas next
year. A $25 million theatre was built especially. Although the movie musical
retains the essence of the stage story, this is musically superb, but for a
moving story about a disfigured musical genius it is dramatically heavy and
flat.
Schumacher (Batman Forever, Phone Booth), who
has never helmed a musical before, directs from a screenplay written by himself
and Lloyd Webber, who composed the superb songs. Set in a Paris Opera theatre in
1870 Phantom tells the story of chorus girl Christine’s torn love for the
Phantom, who lives under the opera house alone, sometimes terrorising the
productions on stage, and her love for Raoul, a handsome and dashing courtier.
The Phantom is seductive and dark, and enigmatic, as he
manipulates Christine into his liar, and Raoul is symbolic of wholesomeness and
light who shares a transparent and saving love for her unlike the phantom’s
shadowy promises and suffocating obsession. This relies on these three
characters in centring the drama, which has its weaknesses.
After a sweeping beginning, two-thirds through it becomes
increasing less engaging. Raoul, played by stage and television actor Patrick
Wilson, is too straight to be interesting, but has a great voice, and the
Phantom (Gerard Butler, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider) is weakened by an
ambiguous characterisation. Schumacher notes on the movie’s promotional website
that Lloyd Webber’s version “presents the Phantom as more of a tragic lover and
a sensitive romantic, not just a creature of horror to be feared.” The Phantom
is not conspicuously a romantic or a villain, so who is he really? We get a
flashback to his childhood that hopes to explain his present predicament which
adds to the uncertainty about him.
Still, Butler oozes presence on screen, his singing embarrassingly out of tune
all the same, and his character albeit sympathetic. Emmy Rossum (The Day
After Tomorrow) has a sweet, easy to listen to and beautifully honed voice
as Christine. Minnie Driver (Grosse Point Blank) as a temperamental
operetta is welcome light relief. There is an amalgam of memorable songs and a
beautiful score, and impressive costumes and production design. But Schumacher’s
conscientious direction leaves this polished production just too tidy.
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