However, when we reach the final scenes in the Phantom’s dark lair, Wilson at last catches on and we’re treated to a fantastic trio featuring all three singers. Up to that point, you couldn’t care less whether his character gets the girl. Wilson is perfectly abysmal until the last 30 minutes of the picture. Butler captures the horrific sensuality of the Phantom but there are some songs that challenge him vocally and the challenge is not won handily. The other parts of the romantic triumvirate are inferior. She’s full of life and carries a powerful voice. Rossum gives a terrific debut performance as ingenue Christine. The performances are better than expected but they are part of the film’s faults The sets and costumes are extravagant, setting the scene brilliantly. To a small extent, director Joel Schumacher succeeds. It’s one of theatrical history’s most popular musicals and fans around the world will be hard to impress. Murder is obviously not out of the question.Īdapting The Phantom of the Opera to the stage is a daunting task. Through a series of musical numbers, we learn to what lengths the Phantom will go to ensure Christine performs on stage. It’s a love triangle of paranormal magnitude but Christine and Roual soon learn that the Phantom is not what he appears. Their rivalry threatens to tear Christine apart. The Phantom has fallen in love with her but so has the young Raoul (Patrick Wilson). The film then proceeds to tell Christine’s story as she is vaulted into stardom thanks to the Phantom’s tutelage and behind-the-scenes rigging. The foot lights are reignited and color slowly seeps across the screen as the audience is returned to the days when the Opera was full of life. As the auctioneer tells of the newly-restored chandelier, it is slowly raised from the dusty floor to its original position in the theater. The opening scene is impressive but suffers from a grainy black-and-white motif. These memories are spurred on by an auction held in the ruined opera house where he, Raoul (Patrick Wilson), purchases a music box that his Christine told him about. The musical is told in flashback as an aristocrat lovingly remembers the trials he and his wife went through. Christine (Emmy Rossum) is young, beautiful and hopelessly in love with a man she’s never seen. The Phantom (Gerard Butler) haunts the theater with great relish looking for his next great student. Sumptuous and delirious, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s classic theater musical The Phantom of the Opera arrives at the Cineplex.įar beneath the Paris Opera, a man, or is it a ghost, lives.
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