![]() Schumacher explicitly wanted to depict the height of Second Empire decadence and instead of setting it at, y'know, 1865 or even 1869, he chose the moment the government was collapsing like a flan in a cupboard. The film is set during 1870/1871, which is absolutely unbelievable considering France was at war at the time-Paris was literally under bombardment by the Prussians. Gerard butler phantom of the opera review movie#so the Phantom showing up with Clark Kent levels of disguise in the movie felt unacceptably stupid.Īnd then there were the historical gaffes. In the stage show, it's already painfully obvious it's the Phantom and not Piangi singing and he's covered from head-to-toe in a robe. I'm thinking specifically of Point of No Return. If a film is meant to be more realistic than a musical, as a general rule, then certain scenes exacerbated moments of the stage show that already strained credulity. ![]() but phans weren't expecting a Phantom who looked like he wandered off the cover of a harlequin novel. Don't get me wrong, the Phantom is supposed to be perceived as a sexy bad boy. The fact that he was made so young and stripped of his backstory was also irritating, to say nothing of how the film turned Christine into a teenager. Now that's an ugly mug earning a mother's fear and loathing. Having such a conventionally handsome actor with such a minor disfigurement, again, made it very difficult to take the Phantom's angst seriously, considering musical phans were accustomed to a disfigurement so intense you can see it from the cheap seats. Gerard butler phantom of the opera review full#The movie does, after all, claim to take place in an opera house with a cast full of characters who are, allegedly, singers.Īfter that, the way they chose to sexualize the Phantom left a sour taste in some phans' mouths, especially when his deformation was so underwhelming. ![]() Basically, it would have been nice to actually have more actors with a modicum of vocal technique. Because suddenly we now have characters speaking in rhyme, and that sounds just as unnatural as the show's quasi-recitative from a realism point of view. It was not handled well, in my opinion, considering they didn't change the words. On that same note, the way so many sung lines were downgraded to dialogue felt awkward. One of the biggest issues was, unfortunately, the singing if only because it was so difficult to suspend disbelief that the Phantom could be mistaken for the Angel of Music and that Christine actually had a voice worth listening to (especially considering they lowered the key of the title song because Emmy Rossum could not hit the final note of the cadenza). It very much became Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera and nobody else's. Instead, the film, more or less, stripped their work from the story. Something that honored, for example, the work of Maria Bjornson, Gillian Lynne, or Hal Prince, who were just as responsible for the show's success as ALW. I don't think anybody wanted an exact replica of the stage show, but they wanted something that honored or at least captured the feel of the original. There's nothing wrong with liking the movie-everyone is entitled to their own taste-but here's the rundown: Regardless, what are your thoughts? Do you like the movie or not and why or why not? But maybe I'm missing something, or I'm overlooking some major flaw in the movie, or understating the other versions. It's probably my favorite version of Phantom, and I don't think it really deserves the hate it's getting. ![]() I think a lot of people who dislike the movie seem to have wanted essentially just a direct recreation of the original performance, and there's nothing wrong with that, but I don't see what's so bad about this interpretation. I think his singing really sells the audience on Erik's madness and his spiral into desperation as the story goes on he starts off as very refined and dignified early on, but then we can see his shift from the certainty of having Christine to the desperation of losing her in All I Ask of You, and especially in Down Once More, Butler nails Erik's mad desire to keep Christine all to himself. ![]() I think that what he lacks in intensity and melodrama, he more than makes up for in showing the emotion of Erik. He feels grounded in reality, like a regular guy. He's not as "operatic" as they are in the stage performances, but that's because it's a vastly different form of media. Yes, Gerard Butler's voice is different from the other Phantoms, but I think it works for the movie. I see a lot of people on the internet saying that the movie is the worst version of Phantom, or that it's a steaming pile of garbage, and I really don't get why. ![]()
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