Saturday, April 23, 2005

Phantom of the Opera: reviewed

Overall I enjoyed the movie, but it is not great. Let me explain: (If you dont want spoilers you might not want to read this...I dont know where it is gonna go.)
First the good. This movie has some of the most enthralling moments that Ihave see in a movie. The first comes when, after a long stretch of a black-and-white sequence, a very powerful Phantom of the Opera overture is played, andthe opera house is light up with color and sound. This scene captures your attention, and if you werent into the movie yet, you will be engulfed by it after this scene. The second time that the movie was very gripping was when the Phantom sings the heros love theme song after seducing Christine. Man, at that time I just wanted to kick the crap out of the Phantom, they did that scene very well. The last time that I was impressed by the movie was when Christine, the Phantom, and Raoul were in the dungeon all singing different songs arguing their points. (You know when I mean?) It was pretty good.
Now the bad: I had two problems with the movie, the first is that some of the songs were too long, and kind of kicked me out of being evolved in the movie. The most notable example is when Christine is in the grave yard. The song is so long and slow that I started to think about other things, like how thespider webs were placed on the grave stones... The other thing I didnt like was how some of the sung lines really seemed awkward. I know they are trying to make a musical into a movie, but at times when the sung lines could have just been spoken, it doesnt seem to flow.
Overall I liked this movie, and it felt like I spent my time wisely by watching the it. But it is not the best movie ever, and Moulin Rouge is better as a song-y movie. (I preferred the plot, music, costumes, and camera work in Moulin Rouge.) But Phantom of the Opera is worth watching, so if you have not seen it yet, depart and observe.

1 comment:

newgen said...

agree that some of the songs are too long and also on how some of the lines could have been spoken instead of sung but to the film's credit, they did the same thing on the play version (at least on the soundtrack). for example, 'what it is that I am meant to have wrote'. at least in the movie, they had the owner correct it to 'have written'.