The Phantom of the Opera

Name: The Phantom of the Opera
Director: Joel Schumacher
Released: 2004

Joel Schumacher

2004

Synopsis

Deformed since birth, a bitter man known only as The Phantom lives in the sewers underneath the Paris Opera House. He falls in love with the obscure chorus singer Christine, and privately tutors her while terrorizing the rest of the crew.

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75
Rolling Stone
Phantom, still running on Broadway after sixteen years, is a rapturous spectacle. And the movie, directed full throttle by Joel Schumacher, goes the show one better.
70
Variety
Sumptuous pic version, which evokes the original show while working as a movie in its own right, is lit by a radiant, vocally lustrous perf by teenaged Emmy Rossum.
60
Empire
The end result, although entertaining and well-crafted, certainly isn't on the same breathtaking scale of, say, Alan Parker's epic "Evita."
60
The Hollywood Reporter
What the film most damagingly lacks though is a sense of mystery and danger.
50
Newsweek
It's sometimes hard to tell the characters from the candelabra. This lavish screen version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical is so chockablock with decorative detail the human figures are often competing with the decor for attention.
40
L.A. Weekly
Watching the passionless Phantom, with its geriatric story-framing device, gooey dimestore romanticism and tawdry pop ballads about unrequited yearning, feels akin to dying and waking up in your parents’ easy-listening-radio hell.
30
Village Voice
This Phantom's an overblown mess of ostentatious razzmatazz. Sure, all the ingredients of camp are there (oh, the hubris!), but this isn't a so-bad-it's-good classic. It's worse.
30
Los Angeles Times
The real problem with "Phantom" is the problem with Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals in general. It's a slow-moving orgy of lowbrow grandiosity that's as tedious as it is overblown and pretentious.

The Phantom of the Opera

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