Rating: 
Summary: Misleading Notice?
Review: I've not yet seen the entire disc, but I have noticed that both sides of the DVD seem to be Flat / Pan & Scan prints. There is a little bit of croping on a title card but that seems to be the extent of it. I don't know if this is a glitch or if this is correct or what, but it is something that may be an issue that needs to be corrected.An interesting movie so far, but be warned of that potential issue.
Rating: 
Summary: Bizarre Even by Argento Standards!
Review: Dario Argento's adaption of the Leroux novel is truly strange even by his standards. Anyone expecting a faithful adaption will be sorely disappointed as will die-hard gore fans. Though the time period and characters of the novel remain the same the remainder is radically different. The Phantom is no longer a physical monster but one scarred from the inside. Raised by rats he prowls the underground catacombs and halls of the opera house dispatching victims in various gruesome ways. He also holds a psychic link with Christine. The film is lush, romantic, gory and filled with intentional comic touches. Bizarre to say the least and, oddly enough, though it's quite far from being a completely satisfying experience I couldn't wait to watch it again.
Rating: 
Summary: Fun with the phantom
Review: Incredibly enough, I found this wickedly funny. The reason that so many of Argentos fans hates this movie is probably that it's not typical Argento. Instead it's a very italian "Felliniesque" picture, which has it's own wicked logic in fragmentary form. Sets, cinemantography and costumes are wonderful as usual in a Argentomovie. And the music by Morricone is highly romantic, one of his best scores in recent years. The quota of nudity is unusually high for Argento but in line with the subject. The gorescenes are a bit hokey, but often effective. And the fat diva Carlotta is a scream (no pun intended), getting most of the (intended) laughs. However, one drawback is the colorless leads (Sands and Asia Argento), the dubbing sometimes hurts and the scene with the burning rat-trap is only embarrassing and totally misjudged. But all in all, disjointed but unexpected fun.
Rating:
Summary: Argento's own "8 1/2". Art-House Horror for the Soul...
Review: Well, after the pretty poor by Argento standards "Trauma" and the near-perfect "Stendhal Syndrome", Dario Argento pulls off his most expensive in-joke yet! I saw this movie at Athens Film Festival where they had organised a retrospective of Dario's work and I found it extreamely interesting. Argento does not care to make a horror film, that's for sure. Instead, he creates a self-ironic film, deliberatly balancing between shots of poetic grace (the Phantom's visions of children pierced by mousetraps - chilling) and shots of extravagant kitch (Asia's appearance in the same scene!). Argento's choice of not to have his Phantom disfigured was not without a point: This man is disfigured from the inside, and thanks to the script, it shows. Let's not forget that Gerard Brach, the co-scripter, is the man who co-wrote "Frantic", "The Fearless Vampire Killers" and many other Polanski films. So, there is no mistake here. The film is deliberatly funny in places but it contains some very weird scenes (like the one in the borthel - unbelievable for an Argento film). I would say that it is his more Felini-esque film yet. It is his "8 1/2". After all, he is Italian! A movie that belongs more to the Art-House section than to that of Horror, I might add. Don't miss it though. And buy the Ennio Moriconne soundtrack, it is a masterpiece!
Rating: 
Summary: Even Lloyd-Webber couldn't have done worse
Review: It's a painful fact that, for Argento fans (myself included) each new release from the former giallo-genius records a new low in his career. Phantom is no exception and, if it's any consolation, it makes recent films 'Trauma' and 'The Stendhal Syndrome' look like masterworks. If you're a fan of 'Deep Red' and you've seen 'The Stendhal Syndrome' you'll know that this is some feat. Argento manages to excise any of the romance and mystery of Larouche's novel and replace it with dull characters, an utterly uncharismatic British luvvie of a phantom (the execrable Julian Sands) and a thoroughgoing sense of boredom. Argento's slightly perverse on-screen relationship with his daughter Asia continues, misguidedly, and where there was once suspense, breathtakingly choreographed violence and relentless ingenuity there is now low comedy, bonkers rats and the overwhelming desire to sleep. This said, it does contain a few Argento moments worth a chuckle (a marvellous tongue-removal scene and a huge hallucinatory mousetrap) and the performances and script are really no worse than Cameron's Titanic. In summary: for completists only; if you're new to Argento and curious, do yourself a favour and buy Deep Red, Suspiria or Inferno.
Rating: 
Summary: my least favorite dario flick
Review: I recently saw Darios' Phantom of the Opera after hearing all of the bad reviews on it. The film is not bad, rather its just not what we've come to expect from Dario. There were a number of things that I didn't like, the lighting being the first. The film is just too bright and direct, you never get drawn in. When you watch 'Suspiria', you forget your watching a movie and become mesmerised by what you're watching and hearing on the screen. This film never quite accomblishes that. The second thing i don't like about this film is the fact that Julian Sands is in it. I HATE JULIAN SANDS. The third and final thing i didn't like was the score. I became extremley excited when i saw that Enno Morricone did the music, but it doen't draw you in or create any kind of atmosphere. That being said there are still traces of Argentos' brilliance as a director. The camera work is outstanding (as always), the editing is tight and the set pieces and locations are top notch.
Summing up, this movie is not one of Darios' best, it just lacks atmosphere. It's still not a bad film, just the first Argento movie i've seen that isn't mind blowing (the same can be said about Morricones' scores).
Rating:
Summary: Dario Argento's worst effort
Review: This is easily Dario Argento's worst movie. It's got very little of his signature traits (most notably the cinematography), Ronnie Taylor's assistance (from Opera) doesn't help a lot either. It's biggest asset is easily Ennio Morricone's awesome musical score.
What we do get however, is some over the top gore (well served, of course) but for this movie it simply doesn't apply. It seems also that handling romantic situations isn't Argento's cup of tea. The love story between Christine and the Phantom gets more ridiculous as the movie progresses. The brothel scene is a bit hard to take. And finally, the humour misses big time.
That said, a bad Argento film is not a total bore at all. Julian Sands is good as the phantom and is not to blame for the movie being unsuccessful, the music is wonderful and we at least get a very original take on this often filmed classic.
Rating:
Summary: Argento's own "8 1/2". Art-House Horror for the Soul...
Review: Well, after the pretty poor by Argento standards "Trauma" and the near-perfect "Stendhal Syndrome", Dario Argento pulls off his most expensive in-joke yet! I saw this movie at Athens Film Festival where they had organised a retrospective of Dario's work and I found it extreamely interesting. Argento does not care to make a horror film, that's for sure. Instead, he creates a self-ironic film, deliberatly balancing between shots of poetic grace (the Phantom's visions of children pierced by mousetraps - chilling) and shots of extravagant kitch (Asia's appearance in the same scene!). Argento's choice of not to have his Phantom disfigured was not without a point: This man is disfigured from the inside, and thanks to the script, it shows. Let's not forget that Gerard Brach, the co-scripter, is the man who co-wrote "Frantic", "The Fearless Vampire Killers" and many other Polanski films. So, there is no mistake here. The film is deliberatly funny in places but it contains some very weird scenes (like the one in the borthel - unbelievable for an Argento film). I would say that it is his more Felini-esque film yet. It is his "8 1/2". After all, he is Italian! A movie that belongs more to the Art-House section than to that of Horror, I might add. Don't miss it though. And buy the Ennio Moriconne soundtrack, it is a masterpiece!
Rating:
Summary: If not the worst "Phantom" certainly the most unfaithful one
Review: I have nothing against the idea of doing "The Phantom of the Opera" as a splatter flick. But with both Dwight H. Little's 1989 version starring Robert Englund and Dario Argento's effort from 1998 the problem is not the blood and gory but the liberties they take with Gaston Leroux's original novel. For the former it was the idea the Phantom had been marked by the Devil and was pursuing Christine Daae through time, and for the latter it is the idea that the Phantom was raised by rats. If you are not reminded of the flashback in "Batman Returns" where the infant Penguin is dispatched in a basket on a river when the parents of the Phantom do the same thing in the opening of this film when they send their baby sailing away on a Paris sewer then it is only because you have not seen both films. Apparently the rats are telepathic, which explains how it is the abandoned infant grows up to speak, play music, and build a pipe organ in the catacombs beneath the opera house.
Despite the cover art for the DVD this Phantom, played by Julian Sands, does not wear a mask. This is because he does not need to; there is nothing wrong with his face, but inside he is twisted as a result of being raised by telepathic rats. The rats actually become an important part of the story, but more in a "Willard"/"Ben" way than a "Tarzan of the Apes"/"The Jungle Book" way. But before we get to them let us consider the changes in the love triangle that Argento and co-writer Gérard Brach have come up with for this version of the familiar story.
You can easily pick out the trio from the rest of the cast because they are the ones with long hair. This time around Raoul De Chagny (Andrea Di Stefano) seems to be as warped as the Phantom, although this might because he spends too much time with his brother at a local opium den surrounded by naked people of both sexes and all sizes. The Phantom does not spend a lot of time teaching Christine (Asia Argento, the director's daughter) how to sing, because she is sounds pretty good the first time she gets on stage in the empty Opera House and starts singing high notes. But he does establish a psychic link with her so that instead of fetching her down to his lair he can just send out a call. For all those of you who have been waiting for the Phantom and Christine to consummate their love, this is the version of "The Phantom of the Opera" to see. The problem is that I do not know why Christine turns on the Phantom or what besides a hail of bullets drives her into Raoul's arms. But then I do not know why the director wants to photograph his daugher naked (my Italian bloodline has been watered down too much I suppose).
Then there are the rats. Ignace (Istvan Bubik), the head rat-catcher has been around for eight years and has killed over 4,000 rats and counting. He keeps tabs by keeping the tails of each rat he kills in a jar of formaldehyde with the month, year, and tail total written on the label. Given that every time a rat gets killed the Phantom must be hearing the rodent equivalent of a death shriek in his mind you would have thought that the Phantom would have tracked down this murderer well before this time, but that is not the case. Instead Ignace has a bad encounter with the rats and decides the best recourse is to invent a killing machine that can be driven around on the smooth floors of the catacombs while it does all sorts of interesting things to the rats it catches.
You keep thinking that the whole rat catching bit is simply comic relief, and for much of the film it is. But it turns out that it is Ignace and not Raoul that the Phantom has to worry about. Besides, as long as Ignace and that pervert passing out Swiss chocolates to the under-aged girls of the corps de ballet is running around, the Phantom is not the biggest monster running around and/or under the opera house. However, if I had to pick a low point in "Il Fantasma dell'opera" it would have to be the way Argento caps off the fall of the chandelier with a joke. I was already trying to figure out how what the Phantom was doing with the big mallet would bring around the desired result (although I understood the work was hard enough for him to ditch his shirt), so my confusion turned to dismay when the famous disaster becomes just another joke at the expense of diva Carlotta Altieri (Nadia Rinaldi).
Is this the worst version of "The Phantom of the Opera"? I have no problem with the idea that it is the least faithful, even compared to Little's movie, but even if you disagree with the changes there are some things of interest here. The opera house in Budapest is gorgeous and there are some nice gory special effects, although certainly not as many as you would expect from Argento and none of them really standout pieces of blood and gore that are seared into your brain forever. The opium den scene is the most memorable scene and it has the least to do with the plot than anything else in the entire film, relying on dozens of bronzed naked bodies to make its impression. Ronnie Taylor's cinematography makes things look good to your eyes even when your brain is complaining about the story. The performances are all adequate, but I found that for me the most sympathetic character ended up being Carlotta: the Phantom attacks her and she still shows up to sing, the strongest moment of anybody in the movie.
Ennio Morricone is credited with the score, and there is also additional music by Maurizio Guarini, but the film makes nice use of actual operatic arias and overtures fom "Carmen," "Faust," "Lakmé: Air des clochettes," and "Romeo & Juliet." This also makes the film sound classier than it is. This DVD is the unrated director's cut, while you can get the original R-rated version on VHS (I have no idea where it is the gore or sex that makes up the differences). I am not enough of a fan of Dario Argento to be offended by this particular effort and have seen enough liberties be taken with the story of "The Phantom of the Opera" to be rather jaded by what happens here and knock off another star. There are enough warnings here and in other reviews to know whether you want to be disappointed either as a fan or the director or of the story.
Rating:
Summary: No...just no...
Review: This was the worst version of the story I have ever seen, and I have seen nearly every form of it. The Phantom doesn't even have a mask. You cannot have a Phantom without a mask. And the movie seems to be little more than soft-core pornography. Gaston Leroux's novel is sensual, but *not* sexual. Perhaps this would be a good movie for horror/smut fans who have no interest in the actual story of Erik and Christine, but as a devoted Phan, I hated it.
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