"The Phantom of the Opera"

Andrew Lloyd Webber's crowd-pleasing musical lands on the screen with a big, gaudy splat.

By Stephanie Zacharek

Dec 22, 2004 | In Joel Schumacher's incomprehensible "The Phantom of the Opera," adapted from Andrew Lloyd Webber's gargantuan crowd pleaser, a disfigured musical genius (the Phantom, played by Gerard Butler) lives in the sewers of Paris and loiters furtively at the local opera house, keeping an eye on a young singer there, 17-year-old Christine (Emmy Rossum). He has a special interest in her, you see, because he trained her himself, secretly teaching her coloratura-by-numbers in those off-moments when he isn't sulking around his lavishly appointed underground lair. He's her self-described "angel of music," and he's scheming to have her for his bride for all eternity -- bad news for Christine's childhood sweetheart, Raoul (Patrick Wilson), who has returned after lo these many years to wear romantic blouses and court her, not necessarily in that order.

A battle for Christine's heaving bosoms and milky thighs ensues. Will she go off with her Fabio-tressed sweetie for a lifetime of kissin' and cuddlin'? Or will she "Let the dream begin, let your darker side give in," as the Phantom implores her -- in other words, have hot, wild, debasing sex with the pissed-off bully in the mask? Who isn't really such a bad guy, just misunderstood. And who also, by the way, represents the spirit of her dead father.

Now it can be told: Although the press has connivingly led us to believe otherwise, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Joel Schumacher are really pseudonyms for two 11-year-old girls from Allentown, Pa., who, disgruntled because their parents wouldn't buy them canopy beds, decided to sit down and write themselves a musical, darn it. And they'd make a movie out of it, too, just you wait and see. "The Phantom of the Opera" is the long-awaited result.

There's no other way to explain the existence of such grandiose poot. Webber's material is beloved by many, but it baffles me. The songs don't sound operatic or even melodic, and there's almost zero subtlety in the dynamics. Songs start out big and stay big -- there's something thuggish about them, as if they'd reach out and grab you by the collar if you even thought about fleeing the theater in boredom or horror.

Then there are the lyrics: "Though you turn from me to look behind, the phantom of the opera is inside your mind." Somebody's been listening to the Amboy Dukes again. Come along if you care! Come along if you dare!

"Phantom of the Opera" feels less like a movie than a nonstop amusement park ride designed to make people feel they really got their money's worth. There's something blatantly condescending about the aggressive lavishness of the musical numbers, as if a bunch of big-city suits got together and said, "Let's have big sets! And lots of gold and lace on the costumes! And singing, lots of singing. Who cares what kind, just lots of it. John Q. Public really loves singing."

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