The Phantom Of The Opera

Listen to the Music of the Night

Deformed since birth, a bitter man known only as the Phantom lives in the sewers underneath the Paris Opera House. He falls in love with the obscure chorus singer Christine, and privately tutors her while terrorizing the rest of the opera house and demanding Christine be given lead roles. Things get worse when Christine meets back up with her childhood acquaintance Raoul and the two fall in love. The Phantom decides to kidnap her and imprison her with him in his lair.

-Summary by imdb.com

A friend of mine had seen this movie and hated it. He advised me not to watch this movie at any cost, since the singing had annoyed him but I was strongly disappointed in him when I saw it and loved it! Its possibly one of the best movies I’ve ever seen.

The beginning of the movie is enchanting; I loved how the dust lifted off everything to reveal a beautiful opera house. I also liked the fact that the scenes in the future were black and white, it had a great effect. The scenery, the sets, the clothes, everything was beautiful; it was like looking at a piece of art. I had never seen a movie so beautiful; all the scenes were filmed to perfection, the scene in Phantoms hideout, the one in the snow, and the one on the roof were amongst the most fascinating scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie.

The songs were beautiful, although the fact that most of the dialogues are sung out does tend to get on peoples nerves after a while, (The phantom only speaks 14 lines, he sings the rest!) but since the voices of the singers and the lyrics are beautiful, it tends to please more than annoy. But that depends on your own taste, my mother for example, got a headache from watching the movie, and said they shouted too much when they were singing, but I disagree its an opera, they are supposed to sing like that (Although the notes aren’t as high as normal operas so don’t get put off by that). I adored the Phantoms voice, it was so powerful.

The characters were all likeable and very well played, although I wasn’t a huge fan of Raoul, I did not understand why Christine would fall in love him, he wasn’t very interesting. The Phantom on the other hand, not only looked good but acted well as well, he was very attractive. Emmy Rossum also did a good job as Christine; she has the voice of an angel!

The ending was OK, it had a bit of a moral ending, though I would have preferred if it was a bit different (I don’t want to spoil anything) but then again this is a story that has been around for a long time and I don’t expect them to change it just to satisfy the needs of today’s shippers!

All in all, you all have to see this movie, it’s just beautiful, even if you think the songs will give you a headache, then watch it with the volume low, even muted with subtitles because its just one of those movies that have to be seen, its like a work of art, trust me you will thoroughly enjoy it. 9.5/10