The One with the Phantom of the Opera

Hmm. The film version actually made me cherish my 24K Gold Disc Manufactured in Japan PHANTOM OF THE OPERA CD which was been gathering cobwebs in my CD drawer. Otherwise, it kinda disgusted me. Don't get me wrong. You can't go wrong with Andrew Llyod Webber's music and/or Charles Hart's lyrics. I guess that fact that it was directed by Joel Schumaucher. To educate the general public, here's the lowdown of the esteemed director courtesy of Wikipedia Encyclopedia:

Schumacher's Batman & Robin offered a campy description of Batman, which many fans saw as a mockery to the Batman Legend. After Schumacher's failure, the Batman film series was suspended, until a new wave of serious comics-based films such as Spider-Man (movie) and X-Men (movie) proved to be a hugh success. That film damaged hard Schumacher's reputation as a serious director.

Destroyed Batman. Destroyed Phantom.

I dunno, he didn't have alot of vision I guess. If he didn't realise it, having two people interacting onscreen when there's so much empty space just doesn't work. I'd think shots should have been tighter when there's nothing to see in the background cause all the wide shots just makes the phantom look idiotic prancing around. Sigh. At least he didn't give him nipples.

But the product placement. So obvious. So horrendous. So Schumacher. Swarovski crystals anyone? Ugh.

And trust me when I say ignore the black and white fill ins. It just doesn't make the story any much easier to understand for a non-phantom watcher and even for one that had caught the musical live onstage. It doesn't help. It confuses. So who's the old lady standing there looking tired. Yeah, we know the old geezer's Mr R. So does that mean Christine is dead? I prefer ambiguity. Explain away everything and the magic is gone.

Case in point. The Phantom being a runaway gypsy boy.

Fuck.

How low can he go? Seriously. Screwing up the mystery of the Phantom of the Opera by explaining him away as a violent little gypsy ugly son of a bitch (literally) kinda spoils the entire mood that the story tried so hard to build up from the start doesn't it? So now our Phantom's a little stuck up snotty brat whom treats the theatre as his playground? A brat you say? Thank you very much. Magic gone. No mystery. No point. Next please.

This isn't even a film. This is a movie. And it's not gonna garner any oscars or globes this year (other than for score, but then again it's not fair is it?) ... this much I can predict.

If anybody else says otherwise, do flame me. I'm bored.