What were the studio execs thinking? Or did Andrew Lloyd Webber use his own dime to craft a colossal vanity project? PHANTOM never had much story to lean on, but now there’s none at all. The three leads are bad enough (the girl is pretty but makes a wiry sound ‘in alt’; the boy is pretty but crucified by his haircut; the phantom is also pretty but hopelessly over-parted -- he’s only lightly disfigured & can’t hit the notes), while off to the side, Minnie Driver & Simon Callow ham away like rank amateurs. Joel Schumacher returns to his baroque BATMAN style: Decor, decor everywhere, and not a shot that cuts; hoping it will all somehow come together in the editing room. (It doesn't.) And the music, the presumed raison d'etre for the project, repeats its few pathetic themes endlessly when not shamelessly 'borrowing' from such 'little known' tunes as "Blow the Wind Southerly" or Don Jose’s ‘Flower Song’ from CARMEN, nipping the latter's famous ‘wrong chord’ cadence at the end to gild the Phantom’s big romantic solo number. And how uncomfortably 'Music of the Night' lies on the voice. The film came and went in a flash. The stage show continues indefinitely.
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