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[prysmicdork]

Hee. I rented the newish movie version of Phantom of the Opera tonight because I hadn't seen it and the Wicked love has refreshed my love of musicals, but anyway, its kind of awesome and aweful at the same time. Its like, Phantom of the Opera: The Music Video! (the exclamation point is crucial), because its all lavish and lovely and everyone is

Comments

[ti94]

I had a number of complaints about the movie, mostly musical in nature. First, I thought the Phantom sucked. Gerard Butler really fails to bring the intensity of singing to the movie that Michael Ball had on stage (which comes through in the few clips of him I've seen). Also, a number of points at which, in the stage musical, the characters would break into quiet, mysterious song, in the movie the characters continue speaking... with the effect that the characters are speaking normally, and then they're suddenly speaking in verse. It kills the sharp line between singing and not-singing. A number of other moments just left me cold in terms of the sense of drama... the song accompanying Christine and the Phantom's descent to his lair began far too suddenly. A lot of the music just seemed to lack polish.

Visually, it was beautiful. I think it was well-cast, except for the two leading men, Raoul and the Phantom and also Minnie Driver -- it's fine to have a big name in the production, but then to put a fake accent on her AND not have her do her own singing... eh. The best part of the movie is the first five minutes or so, during the auction and overture. It's gorgeous, it's broad, it hasn't done anything yet to kill the magic.

Of the screen adaptations of Andrew Lloyd Webber's works that I've seen (Phantom, Cats, Evita, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, two adaptations of Jesus Christ Superstar), this Phantom is my least favorite.

You'd be surprised by how many of the visual effects in Phantom were taken straight out of the stage version. Phantom and Christine's descent to his lair, while singing the title song, looked very much the same, with the one addition of the horse. But yes, they did row a boat across the stage while candles rose up and lit themselves around them. Also there was the chandelier, which hangs above the audience for the first half, then Phantom cuts it down and it falls, swinging as it does so, crashing onto the stage at the climactic moment. Good stuff.