The Phantom of the Opera

Starring:

Gerard Butler - The Phantom

Emmy Rossum - Christine

Patrick Wilson - Vicomte Raoul de Chagny

Miranda Richardson - Madame Giry

Simon Callow - Gilles Andre

Ciaran Hinds - Richard Firmin

Kevin R. McNally - Buquet

Minnie Driver - Carlotta

Directed by: Joel Schumacher

Overdone

**1/2 Stars

Andrew Lloyd Webber's popular play comes to life on the big screen and it fails because of direction. The movie starts off with a bang and instead of getting better as it progresses, it seems to fall short of its expectations.

The plot is obvious. It takes place in the 1870's at the Opera Populaire, an opera house in Paris. Here lies the Phantom (Butler), a half masked figure who is giving singing lessons to a young woman named Christine. The Phantom believes they are quickly falling in love and wants to be with her. But Christine has other ideas. She meets up with her childhood sweetheart Vicomte Raoul de Chagny (Wilson) and they soon fall in love. The Phantom is hit hard with rejection and will stop at nothing to get her back.

The tension mounts as Christine is now the most popular opera singer surpassing the famous Carlotta (Driver), the most popular soprano at the time. The Phantom realizes that he must kill Vicomte to find true love with Christine, but Vicomte will not give up without a fight. He will stop at nothing to make sure the Phantom never comes near Christine again.

You know the story. The Phantom shares one last kiss with Christine and lets her go with Vicomte. The Phantom feels true love in that kiss which is ther reason he lets them escape away from the city.

It seems that in the middle of the production, director Joel Schumacher (Phone Booth) desides to add in pointless material. There is some scenes where singing should be dialogue. It is a musical but some musicals need the acting to get hyped up for the big numbers.

Don't get me wrong, the music a wonderful. It always was, but at 143 minutes with no intermission, the Phantom of the Opera becomes overdone, dull, and falls shy of being a masterpiece.