The Phantom of the Cinema?
I've been listening to the soundtrack to The Phantom of the Opera since I was about 10 years old. So when I found out, just a few days ago, that "Rochester, NY" was one of the "select cities" that the new Phantom movie was playing in, I had to go see it. Now that I've seen it, I'm going to try my hand at movie reviews.
One has to admit up front that director Joel Schumacher had both a lot to work with (well-loved story) and a great challenge on his hands (again, well-loved story). Some people will love this simply because it's Andrew Loyd Weber's Phantom, the-greatest-thing-ever-in-the-whole-world-ever. On the other hand - mess it up, and you've got a bunch of angry fans. This tension made it difficult, and ultimately contributed to the movie's failure, in my opinion.
Transitioning such a well-loved stage production to screen provides a myriad of opportunities, since the big screen allows for so much more mobility than the stage. Schumacher did not take advantage of this as he should have. Trying to keep close to the original, the only extra movement we really got from this was that the actors could now move from one room all the way into another one while singing a song. And much of the movement happened so quickly that we sort of lost the song in all the visuals (see "Notes/Prima Donna," for example).
The bombastic music throughout the movie was painful to hear. I like this score, but it was almost as if Schumacher was trying to make the Phantom scary by making the music louder, and it came off as a cheesy B horror movie at times.
And then there's the Phantom himself, Gerard Butler, who was by far the biggest mistake of the film. I couldn't really tell whether he was attempting to play a deranged opera ghost, a good-looking, romatic lover, or simply posing for GQ. We got a little bit of all three, which made for a "phantom" with absolutely no character depth. The Phantom is simply not supposed to be a model with a few scars on the right side of his face. He's not an overall well-adjusted, charismatic guy with a bad temper. He is an angry, messed-up, and love sick little man, rejected by the world and living in his own little dungeon.
At times, Butler's singing was almost a direct mimicking of Colm Wilkinson, in my opinion the best actor ever to don the white mask of the phantom. But he doesn't have the vocal power to do Wilkinson's Phantom. When Butler's voice should have been soft and painful, tugging at our hearts to feel sorry for the Phantom's plight, it was weak and lifeless, as was his facial expression. When it was supposed to be powerful, they tried to make it more so by adding cool, echo-like vocal effects, but these were too obvious, and there was no genuine intensity.
Not only did Butler get the phantom wrong, but the movie did as well. Probably my favorite scene from the stage production is the intense confrontation between Raul and the Phantom at the graveyard, to where Christine has gone to visit her father's grave. Raul confronts the Phantom, who mocks him and hurls fireballs at him from his staff, declaring war on both of them. The Phantom is clearly still in control of things at this point. The film, however, replaces this scene with a swordfight. Raul bests the Phantom and is ready to strike the final blow, when Christine says something to the effect of, "No! Not in this way."
The result of this is that we lose all the awe and mystery of the Phantom, and his strange, supernatural powers are taken away. In fact, in a later scene, Madame Giry explains that the Phantom is a magician. If the Phantom can be simply beated by a pansy like Raul in a swordfight, who's going to be afraid of him? Closely related to this is the point where we finally see his face when Christine pulls his mask off during a stage production. His "distorted" face looked more like a bad allergic reaction to a bee sting or poison ivy. I was more inclined to laugh than to recoil in horror.
I need not say much more. If you get the Phantom himself wrong, you get the whole show wrong. Despite Emmy Rossum's incredible voice as Christine, and Minnie Driver's show-stealing take on Carlotta, this film is a disappointment. My advice to anyone reading this is to spend the money for the movie tickets on the Original Canadian Cast Recording. You'll have a much greater appreciation for this musical if you do that instead of seeing Schumacher's version on the big screen.
One has to admit up front that director Joel Schumacher had both a lot to work with (well-loved story) and a great challenge on his hands (again, well-loved story). Some people will love this simply because it's Andrew Loyd Weber's Phantom, the-greatest-thing-ever-in-the-whole-world-ever. On the other hand - mess it up, and you've got a bunch of angry fans. This tension made it difficult, and ultimately contributed to the movie's failure, in my opinion.
Transitioning such a well-loved stage production to screen provides a myriad of opportunities, since the big screen allows for so much more mobility than the stage. Schumacher did not take advantage of this as he should have. Trying to keep close to the original, the only extra movement we really got from this was that the actors could now move from one room all the way into another one while singing a song. And much of the movement happened so quickly that we sort of lost the song in all the visuals (see "Notes/Prima Donna," for example).
The bombastic music throughout the movie was painful to hear. I like this score, but it was almost as if Schumacher was trying to make the Phantom scary by making the music louder, and it came off as a cheesy B horror movie at times.
And then there's the Phantom himself, Gerard Butler, who was by far the biggest mistake of the film. I couldn't really tell whether he was attempting to play a deranged opera ghost, a good-looking, romatic lover, or simply posing for GQ. We got a little bit of all three, which made for a "phantom" with absolutely no character depth. The Phantom is simply not supposed to be a model with a few scars on the right side of his face. He's not an overall well-adjusted, charismatic guy with a bad temper. He is an angry, messed-up, and love sick little man, rejected by the world and living in his own little dungeon.
At times, Butler's singing was almost a direct mimicking of Colm Wilkinson, in my opinion the best actor ever to don the white mask of the phantom. But he doesn't have the vocal power to do Wilkinson's Phantom. When Butler's voice should have been soft and painful, tugging at our hearts to feel sorry for the Phantom's plight, it was weak and lifeless, as was his facial expression. When it was supposed to be powerful, they tried to make it more so by adding cool, echo-like vocal effects, but these were too obvious, and there was no genuine intensity.
Not only did Butler get the phantom wrong, but the movie did as well. Probably my favorite scene from the stage production is the intense confrontation between Raul and the Phantom at the graveyard, to where Christine has gone to visit her father's grave. Raul confronts the Phantom, who mocks him and hurls fireballs at him from his staff, declaring war on both of them. The Phantom is clearly still in control of things at this point. The film, however, replaces this scene with a swordfight. Raul bests the Phantom and is ready to strike the final blow, when Christine says something to the effect of, "No! Not in this way."
The result of this is that we lose all the awe and mystery of the Phantom, and his strange, supernatural powers are taken away. In fact, in a later scene, Madame Giry explains that the Phantom is a magician. If the Phantom can be simply beated by a pansy like Raul in a swordfight, who's going to be afraid of him? Closely related to this is the point where we finally see his face when Christine pulls his mask off during a stage production. His "distorted" face looked more like a bad allergic reaction to a bee sting or poison ivy. I was more inclined to laugh than to recoil in horror.
I need not say much more. If you get the Phantom himself wrong, you get the whole show wrong. Despite Emmy Rossum's incredible voice as Christine, and Minnie Driver's show-stealing take on Carlotta, this film is a disappointment. My advice to anyone reading this is to spend the money for the movie tickets on the Original Canadian Cast Recording. You'll have a much greater appreciation for this musical if you do that instead of seeing Schumacher's version on the big screen.
posted by Travis Prinzi @ 8:08 AM
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