Phantom of the Opera
dir. Schumacher
Now Playing
Various Theaters
In 1986, when I was 14 years old, I had a glow-in-the-dark Phantom of the Opera T-shirt, and I totally thought it was the shit. True, I had never actually seen the musical, and I definitely wasn’t aware that its creator, Andrew Lloyd Webber, might as well have been named The King of the Homos. But somehow, even at 14, I was attracted to the mystique (read: tackiness) of Phantom as if it were a shiny gay quarter on the sidewalk.
Now a grownup homo, I’m a little embarrassed by my youthful affinity for things so obviously chintzy, which may explain why the film version of Phantom made me so uneasy (read: queasy).
At least 10 versions of Gaston Leroux’s 1911 novel–about a sexy ingénue, Christine, who’s taught to sing like a bird by the hideously disfigured Phantom–have been adapted to the screen. But this is the first cinematic treatment for Webber’s musical version, which is the second-longest running show on Broadway, clocking in at 18 years and ticking. The film’s cast of unknowns (Emmy Rossum as Christine, Gerard Butler as the Phantom) has only one bright spot: the show-stealing, bitchy diva Carlotta (who’s the recipient of not only an impenetrably silly Italian accent, courtesy of Minnie Driver, but also the film’s few moderately fun moments).
It might not have been a bad idea to subtitle this highly stylized musical theater extravaganza “For Phantom Fans Only.” Helmed by the Queer Eye of Cinema himself, Joel Schumacher, it’s best described as a cheesed-out ’80s synth-pop air-guitar gothic romance novel mess of a movie–and if that’s not hideous enough, it ends up feeling more like a musical version of Schumacher’s abysmally rotten Batman & Robin. But by far the worst part of the whole production is that it’s intolerably boring. Running at nearly two and a half hours long, this soft-focus snooze-fest can only be recommended to old (and old at heart) queers, ladies with bad perms who listen to soft rock, or 14-year-olds who find themselves inexplicably drawn to some tacky form of mystique.