The Phantom of the Opera (2004)

Rating: 70%
Now I've been meaning to review this movie for a while with the whole deal of going through a bunch of musicals to prepare for Les Mes. So here's basically my review for the film adaption of one of my favorite musicals during my middle/high school years: The Phantom of the Opera.

Plot: Christine is a chorus girl for an opera house in Paris where its previous manager is retiring and is being replaced by two men named Firmin and Andre. But on the night of their introduction shortly before the night of a production, the main female singer leaves after an accident that is believed to be caused by the "Opera Ghost", so she takes her place and becomes a hit that night. Afterwords she reunited with Raoul her childhood sweetheart, but when he leaves to fetch a carriage for them, the "Opera Ghost" (whom Christine thinks is an "angel of music" who was sent by her father to give her her singing voice after he died), comes into her room and bring her to his lair.

As I've said, I'm a fan of the musical itself, and I think this is an enjoyable adaption of it. It was loyal to the story most of the time, the acting was good, and the scenery really works with telling this particular story. But some of the things that happens are a little...out of place I think I should say. I mean the singing was good in a general sense, but I think the issue most people will have that are fans of the musical will be that some of the choices of singers when it comes to some of the characters of the film to not be the most ideal choice. That might be a biased thought considering most of us who feel that way probably do because we're so used to the original soundtrack to the musical that we may have issues just because the actors in this film don't sound just like the ones from it. I mean that's partly what I feel when it comes to the singing with this movie, but it's also the fact that they changes some of the music in a couple of ways that I find unnecessary. My main examples are how there are points where they might just say the lyrics rather then sing them and also that sometimes they change the lyrics. Now with changing the lyrics, it makes a little amount of sense a couple of times during the second half of the movie because one or two of the things that they sing about didn't happen in this adaption. But after that, the fact that they do that as well as sometimes saying the lyrics instead of singing them in my opinion was generally very pointless without a doubt. But all the same, I think that whatever problems it has, I still think it's good enough in the sense that it gives us a well done adaption of the musical through and through making the film a nice time at the least.

Actor/Character:
Gerard Butler/The Phantom of the Opera: Now most people nowadays particularity make fun of Gerard Butler for his singing as The Phantom of the Opera. Would I agree to what they say?...well sure. I mean in all fairness, the guy can sing, heck, he probably pulls off being The Phantom better then some of us (at least me for sure). But does that make him the perfect person for the role? No. He can sing, but not exactly well enough for the role and...personally I didn't like how he sounded. I mean that in the sense that while even when we was singing fine, he didn't sound evil or menacing or all around convincing to the The Phantom. He sounded more like a normal kind of guy who's just singing songs from The musical. But I think he did...decent for what it's worth and he did look cool at times as the phantom (mostly with his cape on)

And that's my review for The Phantom of the Opera. In terms of singing, change of lyrics or saying the lyrics instead of singing them and with the all around choice of person to play The Phantom, it's not the greatest version of The Phantom of the Opera ever made, but I think it's enjoyable enough primarily as being a film adaption of the musical in particular.