FrancisPage

Reel To Reel:
The Phantom Of The Opera

How It Rates: ***
Starring: Gerald Butler, Emmy Rossum, Patrick Wilson
Rated: PG-13
Red Flags: Swordplay, Brief (Male) Nudity

Preconceived Notions: No Michael Crawford, no Sara Brightman -- without them, it's gonna be tough to measure up to the stage version.
The Bottom Line: Excellent singing, but much of the stage magic gets lost in the translation to the screen.

Like its title charcter, Phantom Of The Opera has been in Hollywood's development dungeon for more than a decade. Hang-ups came with reuniting the original star cast of Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman with producer Andrew Lloyd Webber -- mainly because Brightman is Lloyd's ex-wife. So finally, Gerald Butler steps into the Phantom role and Emmy Rossum as Christine in Gaston Leroux's tale of love, music, terror and betrayal in the Paris Opera and the underground world below.

I remember seeing Phantom on the London stage in 1991, and even without Crawford and Brightman, the production was an extrodinary experience, pushing the limits of what could be accomplished on stage -- of candelabras rising from the stage floor, through the fog as the Phantom takes Christine -- his "angel of music" to his underground hideout. That scene is duplicated in the movie as a nod to those who've seen the stage production. Seeing the film brought back a lot of those memories, but the magic seemed missing. Perhaps it's because I've grown so accustomed to the use of CGI in pictures. Or maybe it's because of the staging -- you actually believed, if only for a few moments, you were in the Paris Opera and the phantom's world was below you.

The film follows the original musical for the most part, with some rearrangements to build the drama without the benefit of an intermission. Some flash-forwards are added along with a swordfight that really isn't needed. We also get some additional exposition into who the Phantom is. Unlike the stage production, many scenes are spoken rather than sung, so many spoken scenes seem out of joint. Why not just make everything sung and keep Phantom more of a, well, opera?

As for the singing, Rossum is tremendous as Christine. Forget Sarah Brightman. Where was she a decade ago? Butler is a capable Phantom and plays it to his best, but he just doesn't have the vocal power of Michael Crawford. Unfair comparison, I know, but if you listen to both of them performing the same material, you'll get what I mean. Patrick Wilson is just fine as Christine's lover Raoul. Ditto for Simon Callow and Ciaran Hinds, who play the house's put-upon new owners. And Minnie Driver is surprisingly funny as the Paris Opera's card-carrying pain-in-the-alto Prima Donna Diva.

Phantom runs two hours and twenty minutes, but realisticly, I believe at least 10 minutes could have been cut, including the flash-forwards and the aformentioned swordfight. This has to be one of those cases where Webber and company decided they needed to placate both fans of the stage version by giving them something more and people who don't usually see movie musicals. Yes, this film finally got made, and it turned out better than it could've been, but not as good as it should've been.