Phantom is Big, Beautiful...and Kind of like Watching Kung Pow

When Andrew Lloyd Webber's epic musical The Phantom of the Opera premiered on Broadway in the eighties, it was an instant hit. Few similar productions have enjoyed comparable success both with critics and with general audiences. Now, it has been brought to the big screen for the first time ever.

Produced and co-written for the screen by Andrew Lloyd Webber, the movie has great potential. Webber has phenomenal skills as a composer and is a master of musical moods, so it's not surprising that the movie excels musically. Webber's signature melodies are striking in their simplicity, yet they are so beautifully singable that it's almost guaranteed you'll leave the theater at least humming a tune. The orchestral track is steller, Emma Rossum sings beautifully as Christine, and while Gerard Butler's voice is obviously less than perfect, I think he's wonderfully musical. What imperfections are present in his performance as the Phantom end up only adding depth to his character.

It was the coupling of Webber's music and director Joel Schumancher's (Batman Forever) over the top visual style that made me nervous prior to viewing the movie. My reservations were put to rest, however, about three minutes into the film, as the thunderous organ of the Phantom's theme accompanied a magnificently lavish and Gothic opening shot that was absolutely breath taking. I was ready for a top-notch film and possibly one of the best screen musicals of all time. Unfortunately, a few absolutely senseless and distracting directorial choices kept the film from being almost flaw-free.

First, the lip syncing, especially toward the end, was just horrendous. There's really no excuse for a big-budget musical to have sounds coming from people who's mouths are closed. It's like watching an old Japanese Godzilla movie, and distracts quite a bit from tremendous art that is present in the associated scenes. Second, the film is framed by scenes from the future at the beginning and the end, so that the story is told in flashback format. This is all good, except that at a few points in the middle of the movie, it flash-forwards back to the future for no discernible reason whatsoever. These awkward and boring clips disrupt the pace and also distract from how the plot is unfolding.

So, while Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom looks and sounds great, the two don't quite match up. This, along with some annoying pacing issues, forces me to lower what could have been an A+ film to a still-very-recommended A-.