Review of The Phantom of the Opera (2004) by Corrin B — 01 Nov 2012

The film adaptation of Webber's Phantom of the Opera had it's ups and downs. The film can appeal to people who haven't seen the play or heard the original CD, but may not appeal to people who have.

The pros:

1. The film didn't suffer from bad acting. There was, as I expected, good acting.

2. I thought Emmy Rossum and the guy who played Andre had very good singing voices.

3. Carlotta was funny.

4. There were some good camera angle techniques.

5. The visual effects were cool to look at. The beginning with the chandelier scene and the switch from black-and-white to color was the best visual effect, and the camera angles for that specific scene helped said scene greatly!

6. Some additional scenes were cool.

7. I really liked the symbolism with the rose with the black ribbon.

8. What a beautiful opera house!

Now for the cons:

1. The singing voices weren't as good as the cast of the original Webber play.

2. Gerard Butler's (The Phantom's) voice didn't sound like an opera voice to me, but more like a soft-rock voice.

3. Some camera angles were either repetitive, or not that great.

4. Joel Schumacher left out a couple of major scenes and added a couple of new ones that didn't really work.

5. Some parts which could've been switched from singing to talking weren't switched, leaving some pointless non-rhyming singing that's only good in an opera, not a movie.

6. Schumacher also left out some of the ghostly mystery surrounding the Phantom.

7. In the play, there was a mention of a maze of mirrors that the Phantom built. Schumacher changed that element in a way that really could have been better.

8. The Phantom's face could have been made to look uglier. The face looked like it was badly burned, not like it was deformed. I wanted to see deformed, like if Steven Tyler and Quasimoto had a who went through a Harvey Kent turned into Two-Face accident.

All in all, the film adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera is nothing compared to the play itself, but it can make a good substitute for people who don't want to pay a lot of money to go see the play. But the New Phantom of the Opera movie that has live footage from the Royal Albert Hall is much better, and I've only gotten through the first hour of 160 minutes.