If you thought that the '43 take on the story was radical, you should see this one. Nearly nothing is as it was in the book, save for Christine's name. This film has changed everything; the Opera House has moved from the classic Paris setting to London, complete with 1800s English accents of aristocrats and uneducated peasants that sound like they jumped out of a Robin Hood movie. There is no more Raoul; the love interest is a typical, supposedly charming, Englishman. The Phantom's legend haunts the Opera House, but the Phantom himself only plays his music all day. And so on and so forth.
The story is this: strange phenomena have been experienced in the Opera House as of late. Stolen music sheets, noises in an empty box (Box 5, I assume, though it's never mentioned as such). Most go unnoticed, until a man is found hanging during one performance of "Joan of the Ark". The soprano quits and, ehm... stage-manager/director (? Not sure) Harry Hunter has to replace her. He finds a winner in the voice of young Christine Charles. Christine never gets to sing, however, as she refuses to sleep with music producer (and apparently vile man) Lord Ambrose d'Arcy, who is also the head of the Opera House. Though she's altogether fired, she gets to hear the voice of a man in her room, a man who promises to teach her how to sing like an angel.
That's the basic story-outline... I guess. I'm not really sure. As time passed, I understood less and less and cared not at all about the events in the movie. This is really not a POTO movie. The Phantom himself, doesn't really become a factor until the last 30 minutes of the movie; he's being mentioned here and there, somewhat scarcely and there is some effort for mystery around his character, but he is hardly even a character. For most of the movie, what we watch is a cheap love story between Harry and Christine, as well as a poorly thought out investigation from Harry's part about the strange "Phantom".
Notable is the fact that the film fails completely at setting up its own story and the characters throughout the entire film. You have to be quite determined to sit through the first 30-40 minutes of the movie, until you start getting the idea.
Speaking of the characters... gods, they're awful. Christine is bland and uninteresting. She has zero depth or personality and she's just there, because the story needs her to be there. Harry is a walking stereotype. Worse, yet, he fails to live up to that stereotype and he's not nearly as charming as the writing is trying to pass him off as. And the Phantom? Just a caricature. He's certainly not the character Leroux wrote. Unfortunately, he's not even the character Rains played. At least there, you would genuinely feel sorry for him. This Phantom moves along the same lines, in theory, a musician who's screwed over and condemned to a terrible fate, but he's just not interesting. The evil Lord Ambrose stole his music, so he tried to take revenge and it backfired. And we don't get to learn any of that until the END of the movie. So, why do I care by then?
Speaking of the Phantom's lack of characterization, let me point out again that he's a caricature. He looks like a big dummy, over-stuffed with cotton. The mask and make-up only adds up to that. He moves like Frankenstein (though less like the actual Frankenstein and more like that Frankenstein monster from Power Rangers; no kidding) and he has a servant like freaking Dracula. Actually, it's the servant that has a bigger role as the "ghost" than the actual Phantom.
The story lacks greatly in structure and pacing. In large parts, it's just boring. When it's following some sort of story, the moments are scarce and misplaced. It's like nobody actually edited this film, they just shot the scenes and threw them in there, making sure the beginning and the end were in the right place. In addition, the resolution comes ten minutes before the end of the movie and the rest is mostly the performance of the Phantom's own opera. The moment falls flat as it has no point (especially for its length) other than show how great of an artist this Phantom is... which ultimately he isn't. I mean, I'm not an expert in this kind of art, but it seemed pretty standard stuff. And Christine, who eventually agrees to be taught by him and perform his work at her finest, isn't all that impressive in her talents either. Not to mention the incredibly forced, unneeded ending that determined the Phantom's end (as it usually happens in POTO).
The direction was as bland as everything else. That's actually the first thing I noticed. Nothing good or worth mentioning. I'm not familiar with Fisher's overall work, that's why I'm not passing judgment on his skills in general, but there was nothing impressive here. I already mentioned how underwhelming cast and music were. Visually is the film is pretty decent, admittedly. It doesn't lack much, it just becomes an unnoticeable aspect when everything else sucks.
I found out that this film has a considerably faithful fanbase, so to speak. I don't understand why, but it's beside the point. My humble opinion is that not seeing this movie is missing nothing. It has little to do with POTO as a story and it doesn't stand all that well on its own. I don't intend to bother with this one again; I suggest you share my mindset.
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