Official "Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera" Reviews Thread- Page 7

Posted: 12/25/04 at 5:49am

What honestly makes me mad about the reviews (and I'd prob be as pissed off if they were all raves) is they fault the original material--but largely say nothing.

E

[Broadway Matt]

Posted: 12/25/04 at 6:11am

I'm a pretty consistent anti-ALW person but I do think POTO deserves much of its stage success and I really enjoy most of the original material.

After that CHICAGO disaster 2 years back, I've been very un-excited about this film, but I'll be sure and post my thoughts after I catch it this afternoon. I made sure to get tix at one of the Digital Projection theatres (Union Square), in case that makes any actual difference. Can anyone comment on this DLP business? Is there a noticeable improvement or is it just a gimmick?

[Testing1232]

Posted: 12/25/04 at 3:42pm

We loved it !!! Emmy is breathtaking !!! Man, she is gorgeous. Was not crazy about Butler, but he was servicable.

[Jimbo2]

Posted: 12/25/04 at 5:26pm

We saw it on Christmas Eve morning and I was hesitant after reading all the negative reviews. I found myself pleasantly surprised and thought overall the film was quite good. The scenary and costumes were wonderful and the orchestrations made me want to go back to see the musical again. I liked the flashbacks as well.

I didn't think the choice of actors for singing was the greatest, but I still had a great morning to start off the long holiday weekend in NYC.

[uncageg]

Posted: 12/25/04 at 5:52pm

I just walked in from the theatre...(Merry Christmas everyone!)...

I wish I could say that I loved this movie but I found the performances to be a bit on the flat side. Emmy has a wonderful voice but outside of her face to face reactions to the Phantom and Raoul, she didn't have much range. They also quickend the pace of the music in some spots I guess to compensate for the fact that Gerard Butler could not sustain certain notes. I also was disappointed at the placement in the movie of the falling chandelier. It worked, but I would rather have seen it at the same place it happens in the stage show. The back-story on the Phantom was a nice addition though. The only drawback is that if you look at their ages, well, all I will say is that the Phantom must be using some fabulous anti-aging products down there in his lair and I would like to know where I can get my hands on some!!! I think an older Phantom would have worked much better. And yes, the Masquerade sequence looked like Madonna's "Vogue" performance on the MTV awards. They also scaled back the phantom's costume for that sequence which was interesting as they seemed to use the skeleton mask he wears in the stage show for the seal on his letters. The sets were wonderful, the costumes were great and Minnie Driver was a blast to watch. The orchestrations were good but after hearing that the orchestra was quite larger than for the stage version, I couldn't really tell the difference. I think that whether you like The Phantom of the Opera or not, you will have certain expectations for the movie. It fell short of those expectations for me. I know a lot of people cry at the end of the show but as I was headed home, a line from A Chorus Line kept running through my head....."I felt. Nothing." Just my opinion. But I suggest you see it and form your own opinion.

[bronxboundexpress]

Posted: 12/25/04 at 7:01pm

"I also was disappointed at the placement in the movie of the falling chandelier. It worked, but I would rather have seen it at the same place it happens in the stage show."

I'm sorry for repeating this again but it gets me a little wound up. Isn't the movie a completely different thing from the stage show? Is there really a reason why the chandelier has to fall in the same place as in the show? Sorry, not being mean.

[uncageg]

Posted: 12/25/04 at 7:20pm

Well it is based on the stage show. It retains the music and plot from the stage show. It also retains a lot of dialouge from the stage show. So it is not too much different except that it expands on the stage show. I don't think it was meant to be a totally "different thing" from the stage show. In my opinion, they knew they had a heck of a lot of fans to please and didn't want to tinker with it too much. There are a number of nods to the stage show in the movie all the way down to the trap door during the chase scene near the end. It's just my opinion that I didn't like where it was placed even though it worked plot wise. It was used as a warning in the show and even though he says the same thing in the movie about the "disaster", the outcome is different in the movie. They probably could have done it the same way with the stage version, but they didn't and it's what I remember and enjoyed. Just my opinion.

Also, Bronx, I just saw your response to me on this very subject in another thread. I am an avid theatre goer that can keep an open mind when seeing something from the stage adapted for the screen. This was just my opinion. And quite honestly, as I said in my review, I felt the acting in the movie to be a bit flat. Maybe that's why I wish the chandelier had fallen when it does onstage. Maybe it was written to have the chandelier fall at intermission so they could raise it again. But they could have written it to fall at the end and it could have stayed until the theatre was empty! I am suspecting it was written the way it was written and the intermission was placed after the chanderlier fell in the show. JMO

Updated On: 12/25/04 at 07:20 PM

[Phantomerik15]

Posted: 12/25/04 at 10:04pm

I saw it on the 23rd...It was fantastic but, when I was watching the movie, the sounds weren't that good and when Christine and Meg were siging "Angel of Music" the screen split in 2 horizontally and so the whole audience was watching what was supposed to be the top portion of the movie on the bottom of the screen and the bottom of the movie on the top...I was going through some other message boards and other people had the same problem...Was there a problem when the movie company made the copies or was it the theatre's fault?

[bronxboundexpress]

Posted: 12/26/04 at 2:33am

yeah yeah that's all understandable. im just trying to point out the "theatre snobbery" i see when someone immediately dismiss something for the SOLE reason that it's different from the previous adaptation without asking themselves if there's a practical reason for the change.

Yeah, I think I'm pretty certain that I think this movie is TOO much like the show and less like a movie. I'll say it one more time. ALW shoudl have just let Warner Bros. make the movie. He wouldn't have been in charge but maybe it would have looked more like a movie if a movie company made it.

[uncageg]

Posted: 12/27/04 at 8:17pm

I don't think it's snobbery all the time. Just being disappointed. And that's what I was.

[bronxboundexpress]

Posted: 12/28/04 at 8:01pm

Yeah, never go into the movie expecting the same show. Never!

[Amneris]

Posted: 12/28/04 at 8:25pm

Today my mom and I decided to go to the movies on my only day off. We went to see phantom of The Opera and while we were walking to the movies , Ryan Seacrest was walking down 42nd Street with a camera man..so I said hello to him lol. He was very nice but, very much an umpa loompa with a god awful orange fake tan.

Now, the movie.... okay, as we have seen around the web, there has been much chat about people disliking this film. I just want to say that never have I seen a film that has moved me so much. Everyone in the theater was HYSTERICAL. I am not lying. There was not a dry eye. I cried from the time the film started to the end. It was breathtaking. Each and every performance was outstanding. Gerard Butler rips your heart to pieces. I really like his voice. Even though Hugh Panaro is hugh ::gush:: =*D Gerard's phantom had a different take. Emmy Rossum was a decent singer but my god she was gorgeous and what a fantastic actress. Minnie Driver was hysterical. Was that her really singing?? Patrick Wilson WHAT A STUD!! He sounded fantastic as usual. My mom thinks he looks like a young Paul Newman. They stuck exactly to the show but, added more to the phantom / madame Giry story which was very interesting being that there wasn't time for that in the stage show. I really appreciated how they went in depth on how he became the phantom. I also loved how the director used the black and white before/middle/ending. The scene where Emmy sings "wishing you were some how here again" And "All I Ask Of You" was very touching. This was a religious experience lol. thats my take. discuss.

[bronxboundexpress]

Posted: 12/28/04 at 9:08pm

Miranda Richardson looks like Madeline Kahn in the movie.

[Jim Colyer]

Posted: 12/28/04 at 9:29pm

I liked the color and the costumes. Minnie Driver is what held me. I see all her movies. They made her up to look rather rediculous in Phantom but her sexuality came through. http://www.jimcolyer.com
Jim Colyer

[Jim Colyer]

Posted: 12/28/04 at 9:29pm

I liked the color and the costumes. Minnie Driver is what held me. I see all her movies. They made her up to look rather rediculous in Phantom but her sexuality came through. http://www.jimcolyer.com
Jim Colyer

[Jim Colyer]

Posted: 12/28/04 at 9:31pm

I liked the color and the costumes. Minnie Driver is what held me. I see all her movies. They made her up to look rather rediculous in Phantom but her sexuality came through. http://www.jimcolyer.com
Jim Colyer

[kec]

Posted: 12/28/04 at 10:45pm

Amneris, Minnie Driver was dubbed by Margaret Preece.

I enjoyed reading your review. I agree with most of what you said about the cast and the film itself. Butler may not be the greatest singer in the world, but his voice worked for the role, and his PHantom really tugs at the heartstrings -- I've seen the film three times thus far and was in tears at the end every single time, from when Christine kissed him in the lair.

I'm taking my niece to see the film on Wednesday.

[broadwayfan24]

Posted: 12/28/04 at 11:25pm

My review: LOVED IT!!!!!

[bronxboundexpress]

Posted: 12/29/04 at 2:23am

My Review: LOVED IT!!!!!

[Roscoe]

Posted: 12/29/04 at 7:33am

We saw PHANTOM OF THE OPERA: The Movie. Very weird. Not an epically bad movie, not an epically good movie, not a plain ordinarily good movie, just kind of lame and overdone with just enough flashes of quality to make you sad that whoever had the isolated good ideas wasn't in a position to have more of them. I rather like the bookend story, for a change. The age makeup on Miranda Richardson and Patrick Wilson is most convincing and effective. The Opera House set is very nice indeed, which is a good thing because it is a set you will see a lot of. You can feel them saying: We spent millions on this damned set, and we're going to shoot in every damned inch of it, if it makes sense or not!

I have an odd relationship with this material. I saw the original
Broadway cast when the show first opened, and thought it was a good tight production except for the actress playing Christine, who sang prettily but didn't act the role terribly well. I saw the show for the second time this past summer, and thought it was a tired worn out loose production except for the actress playing Christine, who sang very prettily and acted the role extremely well.

The film has one weird element that it shares with EVITA: THE MOVIE. Whenever anyone starts singing, the film cuts away from the singer to the sung-to, or to a shot of whatever statue happens to be near (and you can bet there's always a statue standing at the ready to be cut away to), or to a shot of the singer/s standing about 25-30 feet away, with their faces obscured by drapes/shadows/scenery/statues etc. It feels like it was done to make the film more easily dubbable into other languages, and if that's the case couldn't they have started by dubbing in a better singer for the Phantom for us English-
speaking audiences?

The editing never hits the Edited By Cuisinart nadir of Rob
Marshall's CHICAGO but it does get annoying. In one scene, the yummy Patrick Wilson, playing Raul, sings his big love song with Christine on the roof, the actually very pretty "All I Ask Of You." Mr. Wilson does a lovely job with the first few bars of the song, and it works splendidly until Shumacher cuts away to a very long, slow shot of a statue that slowly reveals that the Phantom is hiding behind it. Not content with doing it once, Shumacher constantly does this for the rest of the song, back and forth between the couple singing and the Phantom suffering. You want to scream out: YES, WE KNOW HE'S THERE, GODDAMNIT!!!!!

Similarly, in the graveyard sequence, as Christine sings one of the better songs in the score, "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again," Shumacher constantly cuts away to show me statues of angels, for no apparent reason. It distracts from the actress' performance (which may of course be the idea, as she never really registers much in the way of emotion, although she sings very prettily), and just gets annoying. It's very simple: I wanted to watch the pretty girl, the ugly guy, and the pretty guy sing. And Shumacher flat out refuses to let me. He values art direction over emotion: he's all about rubber nipples on the Batsuit.

Spoiler In This Paragraph Only, BEWARE: And there's some just plain awful storytelling, too. During one particular scene about halfway through, the Phantom is completely at Raul's mercy. Christine is standing nearby, and says, "No, Raul! Not like this!" and Raul lets the Phantom go. I'll repeat that: RAUL LETS THE PHANTOM GO!!! Raul and Christine exit, and the Phantom, rather ungratefully I think, declares "war" upon them both. And to top it all off: the next time we see Raul, the first words out of his mouth are: "We have to catch the Phantom!!" He has to catch the Phantom that he just let go. No, I am not making this up.

Miranda Richardson proves that she is one of the greatest actors ever to draw breath, in that she actually manages to give a delicately understated performance of great tenderness and intelligence in a Joel Shumacher movie. If the film is worth seeing, it is worth seeing to see what one single great actor can do in the worst of circumstances. Although I'll admit that her French accent seemed rather bizarre, only because she is the only person in the film to try one. But overall, Richardson proves that there are in fact no small parts, only small actors. I'm a great fan of Patrick Wilson's: he's a terrific leading man. He doesn't come off as experienced enough as a film actor to be able to transcend Shumacher's Awfulness. Minnie Ryder leaves no scenery unchewed, I'll bet that fully half the film's budget had to go to removing her tooth marks after every take. Of course, we'll never know what great performance moments from the rest of the cast hit the cutting room floor at Shumacher and Lloyd Webber's command. And Gerard Butler does what I came to realize was actually an Antonio Banderas impression: foreign accent, slicked back hair and all. Joel Shumacher works his special magic on the Phantom: for a character who has lived most of his life in the bowels of the Opera House he certainly seems to have had regular visits from a cosmetic dentist and a personal trainer, and he seems to be one of International Male's best customers.

With Joel Shumacher as director, there was absolutely no way that the film could be good. None. Nope. I was hoping for the SHOWGIRLS for the New Millennium, with the monumentally tasteless Joel Shumacher at the helm. Alas, Shumacher has double crossed me, and given me an ordinary bad movie instead of a truly remarkable piece of Unforgettable Crap. He can't even be depended upon to fail spectacularly.

Updated On: 12/29/04 at 07:33 AM