Joel Schumacher was the wrong choice to bring Andrew Lloyd Weber's fabulous musical to the screen. Just like in the batman movies he over emphasized glitz while stripping the film of any suspense or danger. The key scene when Christine follows the phantom into his lair is an over blown production number that lacks the passion, romance and mystery the scene should have. Schumacher forgot that what is dazzling on stage does not translate to film. In his slavish devotion to following the stage production he sacrificed everything the medium of film can bring to art.
The cast is uniformly good, considering that none of them were professional singers. But Gerard Butler was to young to play the phantom. He should have been an older man that appealed to Christine's need for a father figure. There were 18 years separating Micheal Crawford and Sarah Brightman in the original production of the show.
The film has some artistic merit and there are some stunning visuals, but over all the production is lacking. One can only wonder how the movie would have turned out if someone like Tim Burton directed. After all, look what he did with Sweeney Todd.
At The Movie House rating **1/2 stars
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