Emmy Rossum gives a very rousing performance as the innocent yet slightly malicious Christine who seeks to break through to the opera world, but quite can't and seeks help from Victor who offers her fame but at the cost of human lives. Rossum's beauty is very representative and accurate of the character of Christine whose wide-eyed gleams make her innocent enough to be potentially corrupted by this disfigured man whose own acts of potential murder are his own way of proving his love to her. Rossum's performance is utterly inspiring and she becomes a surefire bright spot.

Damn you Andrew Lloyd Weber and your glam rock bastardization of a classic film! Damn you and your whole Broadway lot. Either way, all joking aside, I have nothing against musicals. I love them, so I was open-minded about this film adaptation of the Weber musical, and I was disappointed to say the least. Sure, I had low expectations, but I was optimistic about what this film could hold. Catchy music? Well, there's some, but it's hard to find. I'm perfectly aware of how Weber's adaptation from gothic horror to glam romance became a hit, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. Because when I was finished, I knew I'd kept an open-mind to what I'd seen, I just didn't like it. "Phantom" is grandiose, and quite the spectacle, but within the lush scenery, fanciful costumes, and fantastic set pieces, Schumacher never bothers to really give it an ounce of life or engrossing writing that would turn this from a film for its audience, to a film for the general audience.

Many adaptations have done so in the past, I was never sure why the stage to screen transfer couldn't have been performed better. Meanwhile "Phantom" in all its bland production qualities, really makes it a forgettable musical that tries too hard. The most essential aspect of any musical is--you guessed it--the music, and "Phantom" really doesn't chalk up any memorable music that had me repeating it later on because most of the music is sung in a very rigid form that's muttered through the dialogue most of the time. Meanwhile, Butler, who I usually like acting, is weak as the Phantom failing to be a menacing figure and is resorted to a romantic figure who wears a very small mask we're supposed to believe is hiding a large hideous disfigurement. His costume only speak of the vanity injected in to this film.

Lon Chaney relished in being able to make himself look hideous while becoming romantic to the girl Christine. Butler's disfigurement is as you'd expect: both anti-climactic, and drab, and he has no chemistry with Rossum. Minnie Driver has a small but predictable performance as an Opera prima-donna who has about three scenes and gladly exits stage left. The film ends up looking more like Calvin Klein models running around fighting and barely pulling in any sort of conviction to their roles and characters. Schumacher's production is underwhelming and utterly forgettable, which is a shame seeing as how the story of "The Phantom of the Opera" leaves a lot for its creators to use.

Though, I was hoping for a very good romance musical, all I got was this sloppy and boring drawn out waste of time that just felt as if the director slapped all the set pieces from the original show and pasted it up on the screen for the audience expecting them to like it in spite of having no connection to it emotionally and artistically. I wanted to like it, but I just couldn't in the end.

Give me the Lon Chaney version any day. Call me an old-fashioned man if you want, but I just had such a hard time finding anything remotely likable in Schumacher's glam rock version of "The Phantom". Though Rossum's performance is worth remembering, everything else is basically lifeless and lacking in energy or appeal. The whole
production feels cut and pasted, and it doesn't translate well to the big screen.