Phantom Of The Opera (2004)

I ‘m no fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber's music and this adaptation of his hugely popular stage musical version of Gaston Leroux’s oft-interpreted "The Phantom of the Opera", not only does not change my opinion but leaves me wondering what audiences saw in the stage version. The film reminds me of one of those vast 19^th century history paintings that pointlessly swallow up so much wall space in regional galleries – teeming with unidentifiable characters in the process of doing things which have no significance taken out of their historical context.

If the most pressing problem with the film is Lloyd Webber’s indistinguishable songs, it is certainly not helped by the blandness of the script and the completely uninteresting lead players, only the support roles taken up by British character actors - Miranda Richardson as Madame Giry, Minnie Driver as the diva, Carolotta, and Ciran Hinds and Simon Callow as Firmin and Andre, the new owners of the Opera House  - have any presence. Brian De Palma’s camp 1974 version, Phantom Of The Paradise, might have been pretty awful but at least it had some pizzazz. Joel Schumacher’s version is a giant sleeping tablet. Equally, the 1943 version with Claude Rains as the Phantom, if no great shakes, is infinitely more engaging as a story.

Lloyd Webber’s adaptation is more operetta than musical and one can imagine the pleasures it might afford given strong performances but here the leads, Gerard Butler as the Phantom, Emmy Rossum as Christine, the object of his affection, and Patrick Wilson as Raoul, her lover, seem as uninteresting to each other as they are to us. One can only wonder why when so much effort has been invested, the results are so awfully dull. 

 

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