Dario Argento's Phantom of the Opera

Rating:
Summary: Sucks
Review: It pains me to give an Argento film an out and out negative review, but this film really does suck. 2 stars seems a little generous, really, but 1 star seems a little bit too harsh, so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt. Either way, this film certainly isn't recommended to anyone but Argento completists.

Lots of people have complained about how this isn't faithful to the source material, but I've never seen any other version, so I don't really care, and can't comment on that aspect. Whatever it was originally, here it is a fairly typical Argento film, other than the late 19th century setting, and the decided lack of quality, I get the feeling that this film was doomed by the relatively low budget, and the fact that the gory horror period piece just doesn't strike me as a workable idea. The film has a somewhat decent look to it, though not up to mainstream American standards, of course, but it seems completely slapped together. It really doesn't seem complete, like they couldn't afford to make a complete film with their budget, so they just did what they could and pasted it all together. There's the main plot, the weird relationship between Christine and the Phantom, which doesn't really go anywhere until the latter portions of the film, and a number of subplots which don't go anywhere in particular other than to provide more victims. Dario's earlier films weren't necessarily terribly sensical or coherent, but this is by far the worst offender of the ones I've seen.(Deep Red thru Sleepless, excepting Trauma) This wouldn't matter so much, were it not for the lack of any interesting murder scenes. It's hard to go into specifics about why a murder scene wasn't cool or interesting, so I guess all I can say is that none of them were. No tension, pedestrian staging and not much gore of particular interest. The only gore scene of particular note is when the Phantom rips someone's tongue out with his teeth. This scene is certainly a lot more funny than it is horrifying, but amusing is amusing. And I guess there's a nicely done, severely mangled corpse towards the beginning of the film, but nothing else here is all that hot.

The acting is perhaps slightly above average for an Argento film, but not by a whole lot. Sands is particularly good as the Phantom, and most everyone else is at least passable, with the exception of the fat lead opera chick, Asia Argento's absolutely abysmal lip-synching during the opera scenes. There's some decent cinematography at times, particularly during the opening portions of the film, but not much innovative or original camerwork. It's certainly not as visually interesting as prime Argento, and certainly not interesting enough to save this film. That's about it, as far as positive aspects of the film goes. Well, I guess the film deserves some credit for the major plot-point being that Christine tries to leave the Phantom after she discovers that he's cheating on her with a bunch of rats.(Yes, that is 100% true) But that's about it.

Yeah that's it. This film isn't boring I guess, but it's a long way from good.

Rating:
Summary: Borderline sacrilegious...for a Phantom phan
Review: This book, for Phans at least, would borderline on the sacrilegious edge. WHAT THE HECK? This is truly one of the WORST movies I have EVER watched. I can honestly say....I was nearly scarred for life! I had to watch the 1925 Chaney version, the 1990 Charles Dance movie, re-read the original novel and Susan Kay's "Phantom" over and over and over again JUST to cleanse my mind of the horrid movie I had watched. I was tempted to do an ALW mantra for days afterwards (and ALW is my least favorite composer these days...) DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE! The Phantom of Paradise AND the Robert Englund version is even better than this. JUST SAY NO!

Rating:
Summary: Take away the junk from this film....
Review: and you'll find more junk underneath. Argento, Sands, everyone connected with this film should hang their heads in shame for coming up with or starring in a piece of crap like this. An amazing disservice to the tradition of the story, the book, and all the actors who've played Erik previously. This would be a good candidate for "modern lost films."


Rating:
Summary: WHAT?! WHAT DID I JUST WATCH?!
Review: This movie is a bad acid trip from the millionth layer of hell. No, seriously. When I get bad acid, this what I see acted out in front of me. If you are a fan of Leroux's story, DON'T WATCH THIS. IT WILL LEAVE YOU SCARRED FOREVER!!! Just hold on a little bit longer for the movie version of Lloyd Webber's musical to come out in December. It is the CLOSEST to the story as you get. Ending and all. Praise be to Universal pictures for included the scorpion and the grasshopper in the 1925 silent classic, but they seriously messed up the ending. BUT BACK TO THE MAIN TOPIC, DON'T GET THIS. THIS MOVIE IS BOGUS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME AND ATTENTION!!!!

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.