Watching the passionless Phantom, with its geriatric story-framing device, gooey dimestore romanticism and tawdry pop ballads about unrequited yearning, feels akin to dying and waking up in your parents' easy-listening-radio hell.
Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera (2004)
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Reviews Counted:163
Fresh:54
Rotten:109
Average Rating:5/10
Consensus: The music of the night has hit something of a sour note: Critics are calling the screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s popular musical histrionic, boring, and lacking in both romance and danger. Still, some have praised the film for its sheer spectacle.
Theatrical Release:10-12-2004
Synopsis: Those who thought that smoke machines and cobwebbed candelabras were the stuff of Halloween parties and dance clubs need to think again. In Joel Schumacher's film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd... Those who thought that smoke machines and cobwebbed candelabras were the stuff of Halloween parties and dance clubs need to think again. In Joel Schumacher's film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Broadway musical THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, these moody set devices--and countless others--make every scene an atmospheric vision of souped-up 19th-century Gothic bliss. Christine Daee (a luminescent Emmy Rossum) is a tortured young star who is haunted by the voice of the phantom (Gerard Butler--who also played the lead in DRACULA 2000), a musician who hides in the shadows to hide a facial disfigurement, yet sings to her obsessively. Dwelling in the dark, damp chambers beneath the Paris opera house, the phantom lords over the cast and management with artistic autocracy--he writes the shows, casts them, and threatens all who disobey his plans with dramatically violent outbursts. But when his young student Christine falls for the rich and dapper Raoul (Patrick Wilson), the phantom descends into madness. Webber's memorable songs are performed with aplomb by Rossum, whose background includes singing with the Metropolitan Opera, and Wilson and Butler provide ample accompaniment. One of the treats of the proceedings is Minnie Driver's deeply exaggerated portrayal of the jealous diva, giving this PHANTOM a very appropriate dose of comic relief. [More]
Starring: Gerard Butler, Emmy Rossum, Minnie Driver, Patrick Wilson
Starring: Gerard Butler, Emmy Rossum, Minnie Driver, Patrick Wilson, Miranda Richardson
Director: Joel Schumacher
Director: Joel Schumacher
Screenwriter: Andrew Lloyd Webber, Joel Schumacher
Producer: Andrew Lloyd Webber
Composer: Andrew Lloyd Webber
Studio: Warner Bros.
Reviews for Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera
Joel Schumacher crafts a musical hiccup with this feebly cast rendition of the infamous stage opera.
Damn you! Curse you! Lloyd Webber’s caustically commercialized but well-directed musical comes to the screen in a colorful, expensive, thoughtless and overacted translation.
Carrying huge theatrical baggage, this Phantom is a mixed bag, an ultra-lavish production that exhibits in conception and design the dubious aesthetic of Kitsch.
Like overpriced costume jewelry, this tasteless, soulless contraption is sure to appeal to anyone who owns Celine Dion and Meatloaf albums.
A pale -- dare we say ghostly? -- copy of the original coup de theatre directed by Harold Prince.
One of the most entertaining motion pictures of the year, The Phantom of the Opera is a cinematic gift for the ages that finds profundity in its thematic innocence.
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