Phantom of the Opera movie

[Talissa]

Okay, so this is going rather off-topic, but since I've written up a review for the movie, would anyone read it if I posted it? And has anyone seen it yet?

~Julia

[nadine]

I'd read it if you typed it up - I haven't seen the movie yet, saw Oceans Twelve and Kinsey instead today

[Talissa]

Here's an essentially unedited copy of what I posted elsewhere, then.

Oh. My. God. A lot of that was about the worst direction I have ever seen on screen. I kept thinking I was watching a bad 80s film. The camerawork was like that on a bad karaoke video, all harsh cuts and grand pans, and too many blurred edges. And none of the effects and techniques that would surely have been available to them and would have improved things greatly were actually used. I'm going to assume they blew their money on costuming because there were some gorgeous costumes in there, but really there's no excuse. A couple of costuming gripes, though. Mainly, Meg and Christine looked far too modern. I'm not sure what exactly it was, perhaps hair or makeup, but I simply couldn't believe they were 19th century French girls. Other problem was the Red Death costume. The colour was effective against the blacks and whites of the guests (although not so much as it could have been), but of itself simply didn't stand out.

As for individuals, some were great, some were good, and others were no more than mediochre (at best). Take Emmy Rossum as Christine, for instance. Sure, Christine isn't the strongest of roles (although I remain convinced that it could be done well with the right direction, and am itching to try my hand at making it so), but some acting would have been nice. The girl was in a trance the whole time. Not a scrap of acting anywhere. I wasn't impressed with her voice, either. It suited the overall atmosphere of the film, which in this case was not a good thing. I went into the movie hoping to be pleased, and frankly wasn't.

Gerard Butler wasn't much better, though at least he acted. The final scenes in the lair were especially interesting. I appreciate what Joel Schumacher was going for with the acting there, but it contrasted far too sharply with a lot of the previous scenes. There wasn't a steady flow of character at all (which is necessary even for as unsettled a character as the Phantom). And on a similar note, though I can see what was intended by the additional information in the flashbacks and forwards and thought they were a nice touch, they weren't entirely necessary. The long patches stood out sharply from the rest with their lack of music, and though I can understand their use in aiding smooth scene transitions, thought they were a bit of an easy way out. Back to Gerard, though, though his acting was passable, his singing was awful. I'd been ready to forgive, but not that much. I did, however, like the way we saw the Phantom setting up his tricks. Very creative, and it worked well.

Patrick Wilson, on the other hand, did a marvellous job. He sang the role well, and his acting matched, as well as looking the part (the hair looked much worse in that early picture than it did on screen). Very happy with him. Even if the camera did seem to fall in love with his shoes in the prologue. Did anyone else notice that? Also quite pleasantly surprised by Minnie Driver's Carlotta. Fantastic. I don't care that she was dubbed. She had the acting down beautifully. I was also rather fond of M Reyer (That is the conductor's name, yes? Or is that the chorusmaster?). He was very sweet. And I loved when the managers called for the ballet, and the orchestra dove madly through their music trying to find the page, and they they found a page number... So accurate Actually, on that note, I did rather like the backstage business. That worked quite nicely, especially in the opening, although there could have been still more in the backstage areas. I didn't, however, like Mme Giry. I think it was mostly that her accent annoyed me (if that was a French accent, I don't know my accents), though, so I might have been more willing to forgive her otherwise. Oh, and how did she manage to look so incredibly cuter as an adult than as a little girl. She was quite a plain child, and then became really cute as an adult. She did match her daughter, though, which was lovely.

And that reminds me of one thing I really really really didn't like about the direction. The film really could have done without all that random walking while singing. Most of the time it just looked as though they were walking for the sake of it rather than walking to get somewhere. For goodness' sake! It looked just like a bad music video. Really really really not good, and it was at its worst at "We have all been blind..."

Scenes I thought were particularly effective were Masquerade and parts of (half was great, half was awful) Notes/Prima Donna. One thing I disliked the most about Prima Donna was the counterpoint at the end, where the lines of doubt were nearly disposed of altogether, making it look as though even Mme Giry wanted Carlotta to sing. At the very least they could have had her standing with Meg looking worried, in the background of the shots. Though of course the idea of background and foreground is probably too foreign for Joel to understand.

And have just remembered the other thing I couldn't stand. The song lines that were turned into dialogue sounded awful. They did nothing to detract from the bad 80s feel, and just came out unbelievably cheesy. Bad idea, Joel.

Gripes aside, though, I am glad I saw it. Far from perfect, but better to have seen it and criticised than to have missed it entirely in this case. With the costumes and sets, the film has potential to be a lot more than it is, if only it had a different director (and a couple of different leads). Although now at least I can say that I've managed to fill in the blanks in my ideas for an Australian cast.

[jackjackjack]

Can I get a recommendation?

I've never seen Phantom. I'm not a Lloyd Webber fan. Don't like sung through stuff really, but I would see Phantom, cos it's Phantom. Should I see the movie, or hold out for an opportunity to see it on stage?

James

[Talissa]

Well, considering there's absolutely no talk of it coming here in the foreseeable future, I'd say see it now, and then look forward to a chance to see it on stage, where it sits so much more happily. I am glad I saw it, and a lot of people I've spoken to have loved it. I just spent the time watching the direction and cringing.

[Hannah]

Talissa, I'll have to disagree with you on a few points. I thought Emmy was fantastic - her voice was perfect - absolutely stunning. Her acting wasn't as good as her singing, however it worked ok for me. As you said yourself, Christine is a hard role to give depth to. It's hard to break away in a damsel in distress role. She had a beautiful innocence though, and I thought her trance was quite effective - it gave me the sense that she wasn't a normal person, that she could be swayed by the supernatural.

Gerard was quite good. I disagree with those who have said he was not made scary in the least, and that you just felt sorry for him the whole time. His insanity was scary. The scene when he was a boy made him, in my eyes, all the more scary (because it made me feel like he had a lot of hatred which could be unleashed). The cape twirling got a bit dramatic though. There *was* a great change in his acting to the lair scene, but that scene was so phenomenal that I just forgot this. The last moments of Phantom are my favourite (the grave part actually ruined it for me a bit) and he did them wonderfully. His voice was good, though not phenomenal. And what was with his scar?! Sometimes it covered just his eye area, sometimes half his face, sometimes up into his hair. It just kept changing with each different mask!

I agree with you about the pointless walking. I'm going to have to watch it again, but I swear in one of the earlier walking songs, Meg is in the group, then they across stage and she's dancing, then they cut again and she's still walking. Perhaps it was just another blonde with the same hair-do, but I could have sworn...

Also agree on the changing sung lines to speaking. Bad, bad, bad. Especially when they rhyme! Come on! "Think of it a secret engagement. Look - your future bride! Just think of it!" "But why is it secret? What have we to hide?" SPOKEN?! Bride and hide spoken?! There's a reason it's sung...

Boring camera work - agreed.

Also, it did look like a stage version filmed quite a lot of the time. But Lloyd Webber's stuff is so melodramatic that it would be hard for it to look natural...

Minnie was fine as Carlotta. Great acting as a diva. But I just kept seeing her as silent with someone else's voice.

Patrick was fine in his part. Pleasing.

But - visually stunning. Costumes, sets - just phenomenal.

The movie overall, in my opinion, was fantastic. Great to see more movie musicals, and I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Very few gripes.

[Talissa]

Hannah said:

Also, it did look like a stage version filmed quite a lot of the time. But Lloyd Webber's stuff is so melodramatic that it would be hard for it to look natural...

That's the trickiest thing about making movies of musicals. You have to decide to either make it over-the-top, or else make it look as though it's entirely natural. Most of the old movie musicals achieved the latter quite effortlessly, and things like Chicago and Cabaret go for the former, and again succeed brilliantly. The main problem with PotO was that it couldn't seem to make up its mind which to go for, when really most ALW needs to veer towards flamboyance (The exception being Evita, which worked well as a subtle one), and PotO's no exception. It's melodrama. Melodrama needs to be big, not subtle.

[Hannah]

Oh, and one more thing. Why on earth did Raoul look 20 years older than Madame Giry in the prologue, then look 20 years younger than her in the rest of the film? Am I missing something - is there a reason for this?

[Sally]

Hannah said:

Oh, and one more thing. Why on earth did Raoul look 20 years older than Madame Giry in the prologue, then look 20 years younger than her in the rest of the film? Am I missing something - is there a reason for this?

She just ages well Really, really well.

[jeyda]

hmm interesting reviews from you guys ... i'd love to see it. But i've never really watched or listened to anything from Phantom ... so it's not high on my priority list

[SquarePeg]

Hi everyone!

*waves madly*

This is my first post! I wish it wasn't so negative, though! I thought the movie was pretty awful. Bear in mind that I haven't seen the show (and have no desire to, I am of the ant-Llyod Webber school!), so I can't compare the two, I can only comment on the film on its own.

So: Emmy. Bland. One of the problems I had with a lot of the acting (and the general direction, also) was that the transitions were nonexistent. Emmy went from happy to sad to scared to horny to comforted without showing us how or why the transition was made. The main point I noticed this was before/during All I Ask of You. There was zero complexity in her emotions, she just changed like that *snaps fingers*. I couldn't for the life of me understand what it was about the Phantom that got her all hot and bothered, because she just wasn't and then she was.

Gerard suffered, I think, from the lack of decision about how to portray the Phantom. Schumacher took a note from the book (which you should all read, by the way, it's a wonderful novel!) by putting in the Phantom's background. So between that and his revealing the mechanics of the Phantom's tricks (how he got to his lair from Christine's dressing room, and how the chandelier falls etc), I gather they wanted to really humanise the character, let the audience sympathise. Yet, if that was the case, I didn't feel it. The Phantom himself appeared too briefly for me to get a sense of his good qualities and sympathise with him at all. There were a lot of moments were the Phantom remained an enigma, and then these soul-baring expositions (the circus flashback, and mostly the revelations of the tricks) that pulled the magic away and made it kind of...technical. So do you want the Phantom to be mysterious and ghostlike or do you want him to be human? I think they wanted to retain the feeling of mysteriousness but still have the audience empathise, and in trying to do both, they failed at both.

*sigh* I really wish it was a good movie, but I was left empty.

Okay, sorry for my negative first post, I'll try and be peppy in other topics!!

Kat