'Phantom' on film

The Phantom of the Opera
Movie, Warner Brothers Studios
Based on the musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber

"The Phantom of the Opera" is a musical that I know I'm supposed to dislike. Every critical part of my brain is screaming at me to hate the show: the lyrics are corny and bland, the music is simplistic and overly sentimental, the plot is melodramatic, contrived and, in general, a giant mess. And yet, everytime I go to see the show (I've seen it at least five times by now), I'm seduced by it. The music gets stuck in my head for at least two weeks and I'm not annoyed by it. The staging, with all its elaborate sets and costumes, keeps my eyes entertained every time. So in a sense, I guess you could call "Phantom" an immense guilty pleasure.

Which is, in a way, what makes the movie version of the show somewhat enjoyable. In and of itself, the film isn't much of anything. Its more of a 2 and a half hour music video, if anything else. But if you liked the stage show, you'll inevitably like the movie as well. And this is mostly because the film is almost entirely a translation of stage show onto the screen, nearly word for word, scene for scene, set for set and costume for costume. A few new things were added here and there, special effects beefed up, and background pieces filled in. But otherwise, what you have on screen is Andrew Lloyd Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera," in all its melodramatic glory.

The actors perform passably and mostly inoffensively. Emmy Rossum makes an appealing and pretty Christine. She sings with a decent voice; it gets very thin in the upper registers, but it works fine (at least she can sing for real, unlike a few stars in the recent movie version of "Chicago"). Our Phantom, Gerard Butler, looks more sexy than any Phantom we have seen on stage - a reconception of the role that I'm not quite sure added much to the film. Butler, however, doesn't sing very well - he's on pitch, but that doesn't mean the noise that comes out is always enjoyable. Patrick Wilson is somewhat miscast as Raoul; instead of coming off as a noble Frenchman, he looks instead like a cowboy in a tuxedo. As the only lead actor in the film with real Broadway credentials (he has appeared in "The Full Monty" and "Oklahoma" on Broadway), it was at least good to see someone on screen who knew what it meant to be in a somewhat corny musical. However, like I said, it wasn't quite the right fit. In subsidiary roles, I enjoyed Minnie Driver as Carlotta and Miranda Richardson as Madame Giry.

The changes that the film makes to the "text" - as it were - of the stage show are mostly good ones. Background information about the crazy plot helps plugs some holes in the stage show's plot, and rejiggling the order of some scenes worked well (such as reconsidering where to have the chandelier fall form the ceiling).

So over all, a decently entertaining film. Non-Phantom fans beware: the film might seem very long and pointless if you haven't seen the stage show.