In Which Corianne Writes a Movie Review
Well, as I'm sure you deduced, I was one of the Four Doomed Ones who shelled out nine dollars to see that now infamous movie, The Phantom of the Opera. The fact that it opened on a Wednesday should have been enough of a clue as to its worth--anything that has to be snuck past the box office on Hump Day is probably not worth the astronomic prices that movie theaters seem to be charging these days. But that is for another day. The object upon which I am focusing my wrath, is of course, that dastardly excuse for a movie. There were two good parts to the movie: the first being in the very beginning when the opera house is restored to its former glory via computer animation, a la Titanic (right when old Rose dies, you know, and then she goes into the room and it's full of dead people and Jack kisses her). The second is on the snowy rooftop of the opera house, with Raoul and Christine singing "All I Ask of You" with intense sappiness that would have melted the snow had it not been fake. Ah, fake...the expressions, the singing, the acting. It was all very FAKE. The role of Christine might as well have been played by the dummy of her likeness which the Phantom kept in his lair--her expression rarely changed from a bizarre deer-in-the-headlights Death Gaze throughout the entire movie. It was as if she was trained to give a certain expression everytime she heard a certain word (in the fashion of Pavlov's dogs). Of course, the expression was the Deer Gaze of Death, and the word in question was "Action." Her voice was beautiful, she was beautiful, her acting (or lack thereof) was painful to behold. It really made you wonder what the Phantom saw in her. MmmPhantom. He was hot. Until he opened his god damn mouth, and then you started writhing in your seat. Imagine a dead deer carcass rotting on the side of the road. Now, imagine this deer carcass being translated into a noise. That is what our Phanty Wanty sounded like. You would think that the TITLE CHARACTER--the TITLE CHARACTER in a film about an OPERA with a resident TORTURED MUSICAL GENIUS who had a BEAUTIFUL SINGING VOICE--would at least be casted decently. Not at all. The Phantom's true deformity was his offensive voice. Finally, we get on to Raoul. As I said on the way back home from the theater, sometimes you see a movie starring a young, unknown, incredibly sexy male. And you see this young, unknown, incredibly sexy male, and you think, "he is young and incredibly sexy, and he shall forever remain unknown, as he is destined to remain a cologne/underwear/athletic supporter model." Such is the case with Raoul. He was hot, his voice was hot. I wish he would sing to me in dolcent tones on the rooftop, with the fake snow gently swirling around us, and then all of the sudden someone would dump a bucket of water on him, and he'd rip off his wet coat while his white shirt, made transparent from the water, clung to his well deveoloped pectoral muscles and then...and that's all there was to Raoul. Overall, the casting was very poorly done. The producers chose to use relatively unknown acters (except for Minnie Driver as the diva, will someone please explain THAT to me), and while it might have been a good idea, it was a major gamble--and they lost.
The sets and costumes were amazing. Unless, of course, you are one of those Logical Fun-Ruining Bastards who wants to know how there can be fog in a blizzard or lighted candles springing up from an underwater lake. I think that the most botched scene in the entire was The Falling of the Chandelier. Several million dollars were spent on three chandeliers (a real chandelier, a stunt chandelier, and a restored chandelier), you would think that the 45 seconds allotted to watching that thing fall could have at least been good. Rather, it was a confusing series of shots of a panicked crowd mixed in with a strange, graceful descent that made the chandelier look as if it was sliding down a zipwire. If that things gonna fall, they ought to make it FALL! Ideally, that would make the scene shorter, thus shortening the entire production. That we could be so lucky. Now, normally if I was writing about a movie I didn't like, I would name the closing credits as one of the few good scenes. I couldn't even do that for this movie as the credits were used to promote the "actress" who played Christine. At least if they had played, say, an overture from the musical, the memory of the horrid movie which we had all just witnessed would have been softened and we could wander out in a daze, wondering if what we had seen was real, or some sick, comic nightmare. I am sorry to say that the entire movie was poorly made. Like an Abercrombie shirt, it looks good initially, but really there is nothing original about it, and it will fall apart after the first washing. If you must go see this movie, I advise you to see a matinee and save yourself some money. Do it soon, though, for I doubt that this shipwreck will be in theaters much longer.
The sets and costumes were amazing. Unless, of course, you are one of those Logical Fun-Ruining Bastards who wants to know how there can be fog in a blizzard or lighted candles springing up from an underwater lake. I think that the most botched scene in the entire was The Falling of the Chandelier. Several million dollars were spent on three chandeliers (a real chandelier, a stunt chandelier, and a restored chandelier), you would think that the 45 seconds allotted to watching that thing fall could have at least been good. Rather, it was a confusing series of shots of a panicked crowd mixed in with a strange, graceful descent that made the chandelier look as if it was sliding down a zipwire. If that things gonna fall, they ought to make it FALL! Ideally, that would make the scene shorter, thus shortening the entire production. That we could be so lucky. Now, normally if I was writing about a movie I didn't like, I would name the closing credits as one of the few good scenes. I couldn't even do that for this movie as the credits were used to promote the "actress" who played Christine. At least if they had played, say, an overture from the musical, the memory of the horrid movie which we had all just witnessed would have been softened and we could wander out in a daze, wondering if what we had seen was real, or some sick, comic nightmare. I am sorry to say that the entire movie was poorly made. Like an Abercrombie shirt, it looks good initially, but really there is nothing original about it, and it will fall apart after the first washing. If you must go see this movie, I advise you to see a matinee and save yourself some money. Do it soon, though, for I doubt that this shipwreck will be in theaters much longer.