The Phantom of the Opera

Phantom : "I'm a music genius, how could u fall asleep while I am singing?"


The Phantom of the Opera is another movie in my list to watch this holiday season. I pretty much staying low key after the Tassie trip, staying at home, watching DVDs or go out watch movies. So I will probably just bore you with a few more movies reviews on my next few blog entries. :P

I quite like musical, is easier to digest compare to a powerful opera performance fills with the intensity of high notes, and the octave, sharp, fret, tenor, alto is almost like a posh a la carte french cuisine filled with oure durf, foi grois, escargot and caviar but when I just feel like a cheap and cheerful buffet of sirloin steak, salad and cheaps with great satisfaction.

I assume most of the people out there would probably have seen the musical of The Phantom of the Opera or read the book. In fact, it was probably the first musical I've seen in my life back in 1997 in Melbourne at the Royal Princess Theatre with Keith. The musical was an excellent show with great performers and amazing settings. The golden statues, the shiny chandelier, and the phantom's lair were awesome, mind you I was a theatre virgin back then. However, when I watched the Phantom of the Opera again but in cinema this time, it just doesn't seem right.

The movie follows the original musical play very closely except a few extra music scores and some extra sequences derived from the book. The movie started off pretty well with the auction being held at the French Opera House in B/W when suddenly turned into full color mode by revealing the most exquisite chandelier that once used to hang in there and the whole opera house back to life. The settings of the movie is a thumbs up from me although it looks nothing like the real French Opera House as I've just been there last April. The outside is totally different, inside where they performed Masquerade is alot smaller in real life, and the chandelier is of course different with the ceiling painted by Marc Chagall with some surreal modern paintings. As we all know is a "musical" movie, putting it on cinema I don't think it works as well as on stage. If you are familiar with musical then you would know normally the music score are most the same but just by changing the majors, and the lyrics to fit into certain parts of the play which is a real issue when you are in the cinema. The whole movie you pretty much will listen to the same tune over and over again, and the love story just being dragged so long for a good 2 hours.

The main reason that really bugged me I think is because while watching a musical at the cinema you pretty much missing out all the mechanism behind it. If you have been to theatre, you will be able to see the backdrop change from scene to scene, the real singing performance, and the atmosphere just astounding. That's why I feel there is lack of anticipation when you can notice casts just lipsynched to the songs, and the computer graphics to make the picture looked grand. I even felt bit funny to see Phantom and Raoul had a Karaoke fight over Christine at the end while Raoul could still sing while being stranggled on the metal fence. Ha haha! Sorry if I am too anal and getting abit too technical.

After watching the Phantom of the Opera again in cinema, I have to say it isn't the best musical play that Andrew Lloyd Webber had come up with. I might be bit bias here but I prefer "CATS" better with energetic casts and more variety of songs. It doesn't matter whether I like it or not, but there will always a group of fans who would always support Andrew's work as most of the audience in the cinema was over 50s. And I don't even understand why the movie has a few nominations in Golden Globe Awards.


Story :

Popcorn Level :

TOTAL : 6.5/10