MEOW!
I remember liking the film very much when I was a child, and I can have a field day as to how much of an exhilarating experience I had watching the sensational stage adaptation at The Bushnell in Hartford, CT. So what do I think of it today? Well, apart from its absolutely stunning opening sequence, and the fact that Christine Daae (Emmy Rossum) will forever look like my sister when she was younger than ten years old, there's not a whole lot of positive things to say, really. It's about an hour too long, and that also counts the unnecessary black-and-white footage that is supposed to 'enhance the emotional depth of the story.' And the music, while beautiful at times ("All I Ask of You" is a lovely duet, and the "Journey to the Cemetery" is a mesmerizing composition), is severely undermined by a rather lackluster performance by Gerard Butler as the title character. Also, I think it would have benefited more had the mask looked like it was created by the Phantom himself, and not something he bought at Party City with his TARDIS (if he ever had one). Joel Schumacher's camerawork is also inconsistent; there's one scene when Raul (Patrick Wilson) is trying to save Christine from The Phantom is falling into the water, and it looks as though the trap has run its course already. Of course, what can I expect from a guy with ICE cream next to his camera as he's shooting? Overall, The Phantom of the Opera is an unexciting mess of a movie musical, and it's a disservice to the legacy that the stage adaptation created for itself over the past twenty-five years. My rating for The Phantom of the Opera out of five phantom masks is...
Ya know...a full mask equals 1, and a half-a-mask equals...a half...never mind.
Until next time,
THE PRINCE OF EGYPT
and MEOW, of course!
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