**1/2 (out of ****)
Starring Gerard Butler, Emmy Rossum, Patrick Wilson, Miranda Richardson, Minnie Driver, and Simon Callow
Directed by Joel Schumacher & written for the screen by Schumacher and Andrew Lloyd Webber, from Lloyd Webber's musical
2004
143 min PG13
The sign of a true hack is that you find yourself enjoying his work in spite of yourself. Take, for instance, Stephen King, the Prince of Hacks. My wife and I sat down to finally read one of his books, fully intending to have a terrible time of it. Yet we found ourselves really caring about King’s characters, even as they moved through increasingly preposterous twists toward an unsatisfying ending.
But I’m not even sure the same can be said of the pseudo-classical slushy pop rock of Andrew Lloyd Webber. If nothing else, you’ll catch yourself humming the Phantom’s little chromatic theme for a few days. It’s infectious, just like influenza. Which may not be a bad thing, considering it finally got the music from the “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” preview out of my head. But that’s about it. The rest of the music in this movie...eh, whatever.
Anyway, “The Phantom of the Opera” is kind of like the “Lord of the Rings” of movie musicals: very pretty, very empty, and very full of itself. But it lacks the spark that redeemed Jackson’s pompous epic. If director Joel Schumacher (“Phone Booth,” “Falling Down”) had approached the musical without so much needless reverance, if he had let the occasional wink or snicker or nod sneak out to the audience, to give us a bit of ironic detachment, however slight, I might well be recommending “The Phantom.” I can imagine someone like Kenneth Branagh getting his hands on this material and transforming it into an overwrought melodramatic delight, of fist-clenching, teeth-gnashing, voice-cracking, spit-flying joy. Alas, Schumacher thought that just because the word “Opera” was in the title he was dealing with Wagner or Verdi.
The centerpiece of “Phantom” is the centerpiece of all musicals: a love triangle. This theme shows no signs of aging, because for every decision we make, we usually end up wondering what life would be like if we had gone the other way. In this case, the girl is caught between the dangerous, exciting guy, and the bland goody-two-shoes. This is not so much an example of the cycle of decision-and-regret as it is an embodiment of it. The girl is Christine (Emmy Rossum), a chorus girl at the Paris Opera in 1870. The goody-two-shoes is Raul, a blandly handsome and archetypically impertinant young aristocrat. He’s played by Patrick Wilson, who’s sort of like Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, only less gay, which my wife tells me is a bad thing. As she puts it, when it comes Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, “gay” translates to “hot.”
The bad boy is the mysterious Phantom, who lurks in the shadows about the Opera house. From his secret tunnels and hiding spots he teaches Christine to be a great singer, and with his cunning he connives to get her in the limelight. His conniving includes drugging, strangulation, and dropping chandeliers on people. This is why he’s the bad one. That and the cape, the twirling of which is his main form of emoting. The singers and stagehands think he’s a ghost, Christine thinks he is an angel, the owners think he is a myth, and Raul thinks he is taking advantage of Christine’s innocence. The Phantom is played by Gerard Butler, who’s sort of like Dougray Scott, only less sweaty. He has a lair. He’s a liar with a lair.
All this is pretty leaden and uninvolving, even for a romance in a Broadway musical. The three leads bring little to the table, although Butler has a couple moments of simmering jealousy. The supporting cast fairs a little better, with Minnie Driver as a scenery chewing and bitchy prima donna, and Miranda Richardson as the head of the ballet who knows more than she’s saying. Richardson in particular, with the only French accent to be heard in Paris, seems to have shown up for Branagh’s version of “The Phantom,” not Schumacher’s.
I have some friends who assure me that “The Phantom” is much more engaging when performed on stage, and others who inform me that, no matter the medium, it is still “trite.” I think I made clear my opinion of the music, although I should also mention that “Phantom” starts to repeat itself rather quickly. The vocal performances—the cast lip synchs to recordings of itself, badly—have the empty, non-threatening virtuosity that comes to mind when I think of expensive and flashy stage productions.
The three most entertaining movie musicals this year—“Ray,” “De-Lovely,” and “The Saddest Music in the World”—have all soared BECAUSE their singers did not have the lifeless perfection of the $150-a-seat Broadway musical. Kevin Kline’s Cole Porter is small voiced but sings for the sheer joy of it, because he can’t help himself. The evocative tobacco scratchiness of Ray Charles would never have gotten a spot on “Cats.” Maria de Medeiros, a nonprofessional singer, is so adorable in “The Saddest Music” because she seems to be singing to herself in some kind of haze. I’m afraid that even going to New York, getting all dressed up for a show, and spending a small fortune on tickets will not free you from my artistic snobbery. Sorry. But that’s just me, and you may enjoy the $150-a-seat Broadway musical.
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