Emmy Rossum plays Christine, the apple of the Phantom's eye, who's elevated into leading lady status after the opera's reigning diva ( Minnie Driver) drops out. When the movie rolls, we're asked to watch handsome but lifeless drones lip synch to previously recorded tracks while they lumber around with their arms glued to their sides. Most manage beautifully with tunes one fellow critic cleverly described as "music written for Muppets."
Oh, Schumacher's cast may sing their hearts out in sound booths somewhere far off stage, but there's no sense of truth to the performance. Regardless of your opinions on Webber's compositions, there's one unavoidable fact that prevents me from properly embracing a filmed Phantom - we're sitting in a seat watching performers not sing the show. The masquerade ball, which occurs late in the story, starts to explore methods of filling the artistic canvas, but by then, it's too little, too late. Hire the man who put nipples on the Bat suit, and you're going to get what you pay for. The Phantom's water-logged lair resembles exactly what it is - a poorly constructed, artificial set dropped into the corner of a vast soundstage.
Their Phantom (the not-so-hideously-disfigured Gerard Butler) hides beneath opulent and gaudy-yet-dimly-lit theatrical set pieces that turn the normally regal Opera Populaire into the west wing of the Moulin Rogue. Schumacher and his financial backers certainly spare no expense, though the bulk of their budget apparently went to candles. If you love the source material (I don't), the chances are high you'll thoroughly enjoy the latest film to pay tribute, even though Schumacher is functionally talentless.
Criticism toward Joel Schumacher's attempted enactment of Andrew Lloyd Webber's cherished stage musical The Phantom of the Opera likely will fall on deaf ears.
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