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The Phantom of the Opera" Not So Good!
You can't exactly go small when you're doing a movie adaptation of an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. (Although a cinema verite version of Cats, shot with hand-held digital video and starring actual felines, could only be an improvement.). But even walking in with expectations of grandeur cannot prepare you for the bombastic monstrosity that is Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera. Simultaneously amped-up and rock-rolled down, presumably to make it palatable to a wider audience, the film is far more interested in earsplitting crescendos than in subtly touching the heart. It is shot sumptuously, though, and it's packed with rich details. Long before he was unfairly accused of destroying the Batman franchise, director Joel Schumacher was a window dresser at Bendel's department store in midtown Manhattan. Among the many films in his eclectic directorial collection is The Lost Boys, so we know he's capable of evoking a dark, gothic mood. And some of the now-familiar tunes can be lovely - when the music isn't drowning out the vocals, that is - particularly when damsel-in-distress Christine first sings Think of Me at the film's start. The actress playing her, the luminous Emmy Rossum (she also played Sean Penn's daughter in Mystic River), sang with the Metropolitan Opera starting at age 7, and it shows. It's just really hard to take this Phantom seriously - despite how seriously it takes itself - perhaps because it's in a movie theatre. Paying a few bucks to see it at the multiplex strips away the sensation of taking part in an "event" - which is much of the allure of going to the theatre. Of course, there are many fabulous examples of movies that have been adapted successfully from stage musicals - West Side Story and The Sound of Music spring immediately to mind - but that was a different time and in different hands, namely those of Robert Wise.
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More recently, Chicago worked because it had edge, style and flair. But when the Phantom (Scottish actor Gerard Butler) steps from the shadows of Paris' Opera Populaire and shows his masked face for the first time, it's hard to resist the impulse to laugh. It all seems so campy. Rather than a force to fear from Gaston Leroux's novel, this Phantom (who's about 10 years younger than Michael Crawford was when he won a Tony Award for the role in 1988) comes off as a petulant brat at worst and an insecure control freak at best. Sure, he's Christine's "angel of music," having secretly mentored her from chorus girl to stage star (and helped her outshine the diva La Carlotta, played with intentionally over-the-top shrillness by Minnie Driver). But anyone can see that rather than being sucked in by the Phantom's creepy charms, Christine should be focusing her attention on the theatre's wealthy patron, Raoul (Patrick Wilson). He's cute and he's into her and, um, he isn't a psycho stalker. Their duet of All I Ask of You, which takes place in the moonlight on the opera house's snow-dusted rooftop, is another of the film's musical highlights, despite its innate sappiness. (Wilson previously played Curly on Broadway in Oklahoma!) But for every enjoyable tune, there are far too many productions like the overblown Masquerade. The Phantom gets a back story here, in Schumacher and Lloyd Webber's script, to explain his torment. Apparently, he was put on display like a circus freak as a child for his facial disfigurement, and the little girl who would go on to become the Opera Populaire's ballet mistress (played as an adult by Miranda Richardson) helped him escape and squirrelled him away inside the opera house. These additions will undoubtedly appal purists, the fervent fans of the show who call themselves "phans." Those who've never seen the musical may find themselves entertained, but they deserve better than this, a ghost of the real thing.- Christinne Lemirre.
The Aviator: Three stars out of four
Nearly three hours later, I still don't understand Howard Hughes any better than when I sat down to watch The Aviator. Oh, the film is visually astounding and all. Martin Scorsese's latest extravaganza is truly a sight to behold, constantly dazzling and frequently thrilling. Every detail is perfect -- as you'd imagine from a director who's as famous for perfectionism as the eccentric billionaire Hughes -- from the Art Deco accents on the stairway railings in Hughes' office to the red lipstick Gwen Stefani wears during a brief appearance as Jean Harlow. Strong performances abound, from star Leonardo DiCaprio to Cate Blanchett as Hughes' legendary love, Katharine Hepburn, to Alan Alda as a scheming senator. See it for the plane crash alone -- a wondrously thunderous spectacle in which the stubborn Hughes refuses to land his newest aircraft during a test run, and plows it into the top of a Beverly Hills mansion. That's actually a great word to describe the whole film: spectacle. And similar to Scorsese's last collaboration with DiCaprio, the 2002 behemoth Gangs of New York, it's ultimately superficial and not completely satisfying. Maybe Scorsese and screenwriter John Logan (Gladiator, The Last Samurai) were doomed from the start in trying to tell the story of someone so notoriously mysterious, yet at the same time larger than life.
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Photo:
Emmy Rossum as Christine and Gerard Butler as The Phantom in the
musical drama "The Phantom of the Opera."
In
this photo provided by Miramax Films, Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard
Hughes in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator.