Movie Review: The Phantom of the Opera (1998)

Title: The Phantom of the Opera (Il fantasma dell'opera)
Director: Dario Argento
Genre: Horror, Romance
Year: 1998
Cast: Julian Sands (The Phantom), Asia Argento (Christine Daaé), Andrea Di Stefano (Baron Raoul de Chagney), Nadia Rinaldi (Carlotta Altieri)
Rated: R (gore, language, full frontal nudity, violence)

Wow. I don't even know where to start. If you tried to explain this movie to someone, they would never believe you. From start to finish it surprises you with every scene and you constantly find your jaw dropping as you nearly jump out of your seat. Before I go any further, I should probably clarify that this is probably one of the biggest turkeys ever made. You're jaw doesn't drop from brilliant writing, but instead from ludicrous writing and you're not jumping out of your seat for excitement or fear, but rather disbelief and quite possibly laughter.

Plot:
Set in 19th century Paris, France and adapted from Gaston Leroux's classic novel, The Phantom of the Opera. The story is about the Phantom who was raised by telepathic rats beneath the Paris Opera house and falls in love with the young soprano, Christine Daaé. But, a young Baron Raoul de Chagney is also in love with her. The Phantom brutally murders any who venture ino the cellars and will make Christine into the star of the Opera by any means necessary.

That synopsis sounds like what you would expect from an adaptation of Leroux's novel. That is, until you learn about the rats. That's when the WTF factor comes in. Here's a list of the WTFs in the film that make it a monstrously bad movie but... strangely worthwhile.

Hair and Costuming:
Being set in 1877, I didn't see one corset on any of the women, and I vaguely recall a glimpse of a bustle. Both the Phantom and Raoul had awful long locks, and both of them had a terrible fashion sense. Raoul, probably in an attempt to appear rich and dapper, was dressed in velvet jackets with large white collars that would probably even make Oscar Wilde cringe. And the Phantom... well, he looks like something off a bad Romance novel cover because of his long flowing golden hair and billowing colorful poet shirts complete with a leather cape. Now, the leather cape didn't make any sense to me until later.... (See Spoilers, if you want it spoiled for you...)

The Boat:
Technically, it was a gondola. Another symbol of the classic story. When we think of the Phantom in his cellars, we often visualize him in the gondola with the tall stick in his hands. Unfortunately, this gondola had two oars like a row boat... that could only be used standing up because they stood so tall. Now, call me lazy for not googling it, but are there really boats like that?

The Chandelier:
There are all kinds of WTFs with this scene. First of all, you see the Phantom, I'm guessing above the heads of the audience somewhere, shirtless with his golden locks flying around his head, as he pounds a huge mallet into a stone pillar, chipping it away little by little. This is somehow loosening the crank or the gears that are holding up the chandelier. Carlotta sings on the stage, watching as the painted ceiling around the chandelier is beginning to crack. Some plaster even pours- not trickles- onto one of the audience member's heads. Then, as expected, the chandelier drops onto the crowd, There's mayhem and panic and lots of lovely close ups of the faces of the dummies who were mangled beneath its crushing weight. The punchline for this (well, it made me laugh) was that later on, when Christine replaces Carlotta on the stage, there is no trace of the dropped chandelier or even any damaged chairs. But what you do see are some audience members sitting in the very same seats with some bandages or with their arms in slings.

The Phantom:
First of all, he doesn't wear a mask, which is blasphemy in an Phantom of the Opera adaptation. Secondly, he's not disfigured in anyway but has a perfect face without even a blemish. Of all the ridiculous dialogue in the movie, there is only a single word uttered that I can't seem to get out of my head... In one of the first meetings between the Phantom and Christine, he comments on her perfume and "female smell" then grabs the scarf around her neck and whispers hoarsely with a sort of fascination, "Scaaaarrrrrrf...." There was also an interesting sequence that made little to no sense where the Phantom is out on the roof of the Opera house. Sitting there, he envisions a humongous rat trap that has a few fat naked men traped beneath it, writhing in pain just before a scantily dressed vision of Christine appears. Also, throughout the film we are given a few indications that this fellow may have a... fetish for breasts. In fact, in one scene he looks at Christine and growls rather strangely, "Mine!" And to frighten Carlotta he threatens that should she appear in the opera, something terrible will happen to her breasts. I can honestly say I've never heard that threat in all my life.

Death By Phantom:
In the original story, he had booby traps and a lasso. In this one, he uses his teeth and bare hands. 'Nuff said.

The Rats:
The opening sequence should be enough to at least give you a hint about what you're in for over the next 99 minutes when you see a basket carrying an abandoned baby down a river before it's rescued by a singular little rat. Also, you learn a little later on that apparently they raised the Phantom with telepathy so that he can speak to people in their minds and control their actions, IE in a scene where he forces the rat catcher to put his hand into a rather mean looking rat trap so that the rats could eat his hand. Also, we can all imagine the lonely existence of the poor Phantom in those damp cellars with nothing but the rats and other rodents to keep him company. What we don't want to imagine, however, (and are unfortunately shown a bit of) is his apparent sexual tendencies with the rats. Luckily, the scene cuts just as he's removing his belt and edging a rat towards his bare belly... Yeah. It would be a miracle if Christine never contracted RAIDS. (Rat aids)

The Rat Catcher:
Here's a recurring character who has his own subplot throughout the film. At one point, he and his "dwarf" pal build a highly advanced tin-can of a rat-catching-mobile that has blades on the sides to chop up the rodents and a vacuum to suck them up for collection. Christine catches a glimpse of it zooming by on her mystical descent into the Phantom's lair, just before the thing crashes and is never spoken of again.

Character reactions:
There was a scene where a fellow was foaming at the mouth and I'm assuming he died since he, well, stopped moving. But the other characters thought nothing of it as they looked at him and simply poured a drink. The Rat catcher's lack of panic when he realized he could see the bone of his thumb after it had been eated by rats was something to be desired. In fact, he looked more amazed by it.

Dislikes:
There was too much nudity in this film. I've never been a fan of nudity in films because more often than not, it's unecessary. In this one, you have the wonderful experience of seeing full frontal nudity of both men and women, skinny and fat. Also, this was pretty much a thorough mutilation of the original Phantom of the Opera canon.

Likes:
It might surprise you that there were actually a lot of things to like about this movie, regardless of the fact that I never want to see it again. The first thing I appreciated was that, even though the wardrobe wasn't historically accurate, the hair was wonderfully oily looking and silly, much like the time era tended to have. Also, unlike a lot of other versions of this story, it involved a few characters from the novel that almost never make it to screen adaptations. For example, the reporter who writes about the Phantom, and the rat catcher (though they gave him a much larger role), and Raoul's older brother.

Also, unlike the Andrew Lloyd Webber movie with Gerard Butler, they actually had a scene with the Phantom playing the organ in the cellars, which I considered a bonus. Also, it looks as though this movie might actually have been filmed at the real Garnier Opera House rather than cluttered little sets, such as the 2004 musical. This was also the best version of Carlotta, in my opinion, as was Christine, because she had more character and incentive than other Christine portrayals.

There were also a lot of jokes intermingled with the scenes of horror that made the movie in entirety surprisingly entertaining. I give this move many kudos for originality, even if it was downright screwy, it was very refreshing to not be able to predict what was going to happen next. While you can't take the 'scary' murder scenes serious, they are good to laugh at. In fact, I haven't laughed this hard at a movie in a long time! It's a pity I can't even fit all the zany and wacko things from that movie into a single article.

Would I recommend it?
Well, if you're a fan of The Phantom of the Opera (a Phan?) and you can tolerate excessive nudity and gore, then yes, you should see this. At least once. It's interesting for comparison and will sound made up if you ever try to tell someone about it. I discovered it by accident on Hulu.com, and if you're going to watch it, that's the place to go.

*********** SPOILER ALERT! ! ! ***********

Now, about that leather cape. Towards the end of the film, while Christine is singing in "Romeo and Juliet," she's happy to see that the Phantom is not in Box 5, and Raoul is in the audience, and things are going swimmingly, when... The Phantom swoops down like a bat from the ceiling and carries her off. That is when I made sense (in a way) out of the purpose of a leather cape. I mean, if you're going to fly, that's the way to do it, right?

The ending tore the already dubious plot to pieces. Raoul catches up to the Phantom as he runs off with Christine, and ends up shooting the Phantom in the shoulder. The Phantom lands dramatically on a rock and says, as if with his dying breath, "Dear, Christine! Life goes on!" They hear the gendarmes coming, and the Phantom suddenly has reason to believe that they want to kill Christine. This is something that Raoul seems ready to believe and he agrees to take her to safety, even as she's crying "My love! My love!" and reaching for the 'dying' Phantom. I take that back... she wasn't crying it, she was screaming it for the rest of the movie as Raoul sloooowly rowed away in the gondola. As they're rowing away, the Phantom puts up a good fight against the gendarmes. When I say good fight, I mean he was shot five times (after Raoul already shot him once) then stabbed three times before he finally fell into the murky water.