The Pants-tom Of The Opera

[Ben]

I did consider posting this in our ongoing Batman thread, as it somewhat deals with what a hack Joel Schumacher is as a director and his latest "work", the movie version of The Phantom Of The Opera, out on December 22, but thought that as it will also probably bring up a slew of comments in response, it needed it's own room.

Here's an edited version of what I just posted about the film on another site's forum, with my rampant language "expletive deleted"!


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[RAMPANT REVIEW AND "SPOLIER" WARNING ON]


This film is the biggest piece of **** I have seen all year.


I love the stage show. I have the UK and Broadway soundtrack. I've seen it in the UK and on Broadway. It's a great show.

The new film is total ********.

Saw it last night (came out this past weekend in the UK). Opens nicely, with an oldy-film take on the auction scene. The music pumps in, the black and white film turns to blistering color...and then...

It just goes dark! The whole film is shot so dark you can't see the details - even when the lights are on. REALLY ANNOYING.

Christine: no emotion in her voice or on-screen performance. She has ONE expression, and even has trouble holding that. Her lip-sync IS TERRIBLE, and the print wasn't out of sync, since The Phantom was spot on.

Christine: just awful, awful, awful.

The rest: Minnie Driver has been dubbed. Even though everyone sounds dubbed when the songs kick in, she especially just doesn't look like she's singing her stuff. She comes out of it okay - if a little over the top - since that's her character, and audiences will just like her for being a the only bit of fun in this ****hole, not because she's actually any good, because she isn't.

The opera house managers: like most in this cast, they just look like they're passing the time. No depth to them nor any indication that they are doing anything other than going through the motions.

Phantom: What is with this film? Everything is wrong about it, from the director down. Here, the mask covers his face as usual, but the damn thing has a chip on it in the nose that is just downright annoying! Plus, it's just a joke as to how disfigured he is. The mask covers his face, but he has pefectly jet-black, gelled back hair all over. Then, in the Masquerade sequence, he has another mask, which is more like a standard one, but that actually shows more, top and bottom, of his face. At this point, I was wondering "well, how much of his face can be disfigured anyway?" since it didn't seem possible, given what we'd seen between the two, that he was that messed up.

THEN...in a moment where the whole theater LAUGHED, Christine pulls of the mask, and we see the Phantom's face. Why'd they laugh? Well, because as I say, he doesn't really look that messed up all through the thing, save for maybe a minor scratch on his cheek, poor dear. But when she rips it off, suddenly he's lost an ear, the whole left side of his face is burnt and ragged and his hair turns from suave black to totally scraggly grey! It's like in Police Squad when Frank Drebin has a fight and is messed up, but gets up in the next shot and is fine again, with combed back hiar and adjusted clothes. Only, that was an intended joke.

Phantom's voice is bad. Okay during the openings, and when he first sings, but when he has to belt it out, he's like the guy from the Committments - I can hear what one post says above about how Lloyd Webber can't have heard this and said "Yes, that's it!" - well, he has been quoted, for all his on-screen credit, as saying that he only leant his name to the film to secure the funding. HE HAD VERY LITTLE INTERACTION WITH THE FILM AT ALL, and it shows.

Direction is just plain bad. Schumacher doesn't know where to put his camera and seems content on simply making it a film of the stage show, on film stages instead of in a theater. You're using the visually more epic medium of film, man - ******' well open it up!! But he doesn't and it all feels heavy, dark and badly lit.

Photography is likewise awful, with camera cranes that wobble about, an operator who sometimes has trouble SIMPLY FOLLOWING PEOPLE AROUND ON-SCREEN, and more than afew occasions when I noticed the camera move in a static shot for no reason. Likewise, some lengthy shots are hand held, even when the ones surrounding them are locked off on sticks. There's no rhyme or reason to how this has been shot, but the biggest mark is the wobbly cranes and lack of following the cast (there's one shot where two people split off and it seemed they just didn't do a cemera rehearsal as the frame seems to panic and not know where to go).

Actually, strike the above comments for being the wost of the camera mess ups: best of all is when the Phantom takes the wooden Christine down to his lair for the first time and - I **** you not - there is the distinct SHADOW OF THE STEDI-CAM OPERATOR AND THE CAMERA (COMPLETE WITH LENS COVER BOX) that flows right across them in full close up. Now THAT is ****.

Added to all this are the hammy performances and film-added moments. We keep going back to the "old man" who buys the monkey musical box to see where he's off to, and there's a pointless epilogue where we finally see him at Christine's grave, where he places the box...BUT - oooohhh, aaaahhhhh - it seems the Phantom has left one of his trademark roses there too! Oooooohhhhh!!!

The Phantom's origins are touched on as well - I won't spoil it suffice to just say that I think they got confused with the "Elephant Man". The hammy nature of the performances - the Phantom just loves to swish and swirl his cape around, which would be okay if he just did it RIGHT ONCE - and there's one moment when Jennifer Ellison puts in an extra breath when trying to get through to Christine, but that just got a laugh too. A graveyard sword fight is so lame and half-hearted that it hurts!

Now, I can totally appreciate that everyone has different opinions, but I am very good at stepping back and admiring films that, even though I may not agree or enjoy them, I can see thay have been made well and are slick, professional projects. But This Phantom Of The Opera is the worst movie this year - and let us not forget that this is a big, $80million budget, major Studio picture, being put out at year's end for the holiday market and any Oscar potential - one would expect it to have been made better.

Things do pick up at the end, in the chase, but by then it's too little too late, and doesn't even hold for very long. A fireball engulfs the opera house, with windows bursting out from the rampaging flames inside - only to cut back inside and see a couple of small fires burning - what's that all about? - and logic, which all seemed so real and worked brilliantly in the theater, is thrown out entirely.

The Phantom's screaming at the end of when he lets Christine go feels stilted and with no emotion. Like the rest of the film, it all seems too choppy, with no grounding.

The film has obviously left its impression on me - just not a very good one. I saw it with friends who love musicals both on stage and on screen, and only one of us liked it, but agreed it was badly done (though she hasn't seen the show live, she does have the music).

More than even a big disappointment, The Phantom Of The Opera is the not only the worst film this year, but the most badly conceived and put together. It is a majorly missed opportunity and a stinking big ****fest.

[RAMPANT REVIEW AND "SPOLIER" WARNING OFF]


That all said...I make a strong plea to you all to miss this very boring movie in theaters and catch it for free - and when you have two and a half hours to literally throw away - when it comes up on TV.

[scrantov]

Couldn't agree more. I was at the premiere, and suffering through that pile of doggie doo and then having to be nice about it at the party afterwards was grating.

It's simply a horrible movie. As a play it was shlocky fun, but the movie is horrible.

Let's hope Sam Mendes doesn't screw up "Sweeny Todd." With a cast like Kevin Kline as Sweeny and Tracey Ullman as Mrs. Lovett, he's off to a right start.

[GeorgeC]

With some people in Hollywood, you have to wonder how they keep getting jobs after one miserable film after another.

Take Ben Affleck, for example. No charisma whatsoever. So-so acting, but generally hated by most people who've seen more than 2 or 3 of his films. His last several films, it must be AT LEAST 4-5 in a row, have all TANKED at the box office. Nobody wants to see this guy's movies. Nobody wants to hear about Bennifer anymore!

Then we have talent behind the camera like McG (what kind of a tool uses a name like that?) and Joel Schumacher. Neither man has directed what you'd call a great film in a while if ever (McG).

Without getting totally into personal things, I figure Schumacher has to have a lot of dirt on some of the studio bigwigs in Hollywood to still be getting spotlight jobs because there's no way after the mess he made of the Batman films -- and I don't think any of the live-action films were great, but his WERE particularly bad -- that he should have gotten an "A" assignment like Phantom of the Opera.

I knew there had to be a reason this film was doing so bad!

From what I've seen of the Phantom's singing, I agree that the guy can't sing... and that's just from the trailer and clips that I've seen on TV and online.

As for the lipsynching part, I'd give the girl a pass on that but have to wonder who was handling the technical part of this and WHY they let that go in the final cut of the movie! That's amateur crap that's the fault of the director and technical crew.

[Christian]

It is funny how people can have such different reactions to a movie. I thought it was fine (it helped that I saw it for free) but wish about half an hour had been shaved off. And I do know several different people who absolutely loved it. And I heard somebody else talking about how they know some people who have seen it at least ten times. Once was alright for me but there wasn't anything about it that inspired bitter hatred in me. I read Ebert's review of it after I saw it and realized my feelings on the movie were very similar to his.

[mr. squarepants]

Take Ben Affleck, for example. No charisma whatsoever. So-so acting, but generally hated by most people who've seen more than 2 or 3 of his films. His last several films, it must be AT LEAST 4-5 in a row, have all TANKED at the box office. Nobody wants to see this guy's movies. Nobody wants to hear about Bennifer anymore!

I think Affleck just needs to pick better projects. It's kind of like what Jay Leno once said at some special event: Ben needs to borrow one of the Secret Service's bomb-sniffing dogs to read through his scripts.

[scrantov]

Do you know how Ben Affleck chooses his scripts?

He opens his mailbox.

[Ben]

Hahahaha!


Wanna hear something even funnier?

Phantom has been nominated for Best Cinematography! Now THAT is a joke - wonder if it got a nod becuase you can actually SEE the camera operator's shadown run across the shot at one point??

[Josh]

That is pretty bad about the shadow. Still, perhaps other shots were so good that they made up for it? I don't know, I haven't seen the film. Nonetheless, think of all the goof-ups in other highly-acclaimed films. One in particular that hits my mind is the scene in Spider-Man, in which Peter breaks a lamp in his room. Suddenly, Aunt May knocks at the door. As Peter opens it, the audience can clearly see the lamp, right back where it was before Peter broke it.

But then again, Spider-Man wasn't nominated for Best Cinematography. Like I said, my guess is that other shots were so good that they made up for that one lousy shot.

[ShyViolet]

I know this thread is really old but....Phantom has been on HBO A LOT.
I've only seen parts but...it looks really stupid, and seems very boring. Everything feels totally fake.

I think it's kind interesting to look back at this with that whole Schumaker discussion in the other thread.

Also, it's interesting to contrast Schumacker's inept attempt to adapt a classic story/film with Peter Jackson's much more successful one.


BTW, did this film actually win any Oscars last year?

[Wonderlicious]

I liked the movie. Sure, it's not up there with Mary Poppins, The Wizard of Oz and Moulin Rouge! as the best musical of all time, but it was a nice film that I still need to get the DVD of. Here's a more indepth critique that I originally wrote this on the Ultimate Disney forum last January when I saw the movie:

I really want to see this film on the big screen but I won't get the chance to as nobody wants to go with me. Damn.

Well, what do you know? I did get the chance to see The Phantom of the Opera and I thought it was amazing. Not the best musical ever made, but a very fine production with a magical feeling to it where everybody looks like they came out of a stained glass window on a cold winters day.

I'm quite annoyed that the critics are bashing this movie. Roger Ebert gave it 3 out of 4 stars, but said this about the material itself:

But what I am essentially disliking is not the film, but the underlying material. I do not think Lloyd Webber wrote a very good musical. The story is thin beer for the time it takes to tell it, and the music is maddeningly repetitious.

Well, I have to disagree. If he's saying that the story is dragged out too long, I disagree, as for the most part, I didn't experience major boredom. And I happened to like the music, too. I must say that Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar is a bit better, but I liked this score. To tell the truth, this is the first time I'd heard Phantom's score and fortunately my first experience with it was a good one.

This production doesn't translate well to the screen...

I can see kind of agree with you on this one to an extent. Many musicals, even the finest ones like My Fair Lady can suffer from this problem, actually. I felt that the Masquerade number was a bit stiff and the Music of the Night number, as Jack put it, was "played out exactly as it would in the theater, with the Phantom and Christine in the Phantom's staged lair", which made the film look like it was a filmed version of the stage play. Yet seeing as the directors wanted to produce it along those lines (as a more cinematic version of a musical), I'm fine. Plus, with beautiful images played on a 2:35:1 canvas, what more is there to say?

http://www.ultimatedisney.com/forum/vie ... php?t=6746

[Dacey]

*ahem*

I loved this movie. Then again, I haven't seen the stage show. But I loved the movie.

*leaves thread forever*

[Ben]

I stick toally by my original remarks and can not believe how much rubbish is passing for decent entertainment these days, and how much of it is accepted and even championed by audiences.

Oops - looks like I got out of the wrong side of bed this morning!

[PatrickvD]

I'd still rather watch this piece of garbage than whatever comes out in theaters this week...

a Disney sports drama? geeh... familair
Hoodwinked? back alley CGI
Last Holiday? Queen Latifah needs to just dissappear...

Everything is garbage these days... blugh.

[Meg]

I know how you feel. Unfortunatly.

[Dacey]

(blinks) I didn't realize how OLD this topic was when I posted earlier.