The Flipcritic

I found your review to be interestingly under-educated. The goal of any musical movie is not necessarily to bring a great deal of live action and bright blinking lights to the screen to please the current society's increasing need for images of shiny objects and lustful bodies. Instead, the goal of a musical movie is to convey the playwright's message (yes, each play has a message). There is great symbolism in the movie that is captured in a way the live play could not. Moreover, the actors do a tremendous job portraying their roles. I wish you knew something of the art of THEATRE rather than just CINEMA before criticizing one of the best movie musicals I've seen since the golden days of Bing Crosby and Gene Kelly. Also, you mentioned that Schumacher stayed true to the script of the musical. Perhaps if you had done your research, you would know that Andrew Lloyd Webber produced this movie and helped Schumacher to adapt the script. It is going to be hard to take Webber's work right in front of him and completely alter it. Besides, this movie was not made so that the public could come, feast their eyes on eye candy for two and a half hours, and go home feeling that they have justified their $8 by watching guts spilt everywhere, painstakingly long sex scenes lacking the true beauty of the body and the action of sex, and/or meaningless dialogue that drones on seemingly infinitely. Instead, this movie was made to bring America back to the theatre. We have always had a great theatrical background. Yet, our uncultured society of today does not care for the theatre, and you are a prime example. You spit on this film because it doesn't amuse you, there aren't enough shiny and pretty things that catch your eye, the dialogue isn't that of a George Bush speech, stressing terrorism and war and freedom, as those are the issues of today. Instead, it covers timeless issues: love, romance, betrayal, fear, sadness, death, and comedy to name a few. This movie was to show the nation what theatre really is and to draw them back to the cultured past we have so willingly abandoned. I find your review to be a weak attempt at criticism, rhetorically, literally, and (most importantly) theatrically. You attack this film for the very purpose it was created. You hold no respect for its theatrical beauty and yet you most likely don't even understand 10% of the symbolism of this film. The reason that people have always liked Webber's work is because it covers a wide variety of human emotions and issues. If Shakespeare saw the movies we watch today, he would probably cry. There is no beauty to it, no elegance, no actors even. We live in a computer generated world of mindless and emotionless CGI characters. I challenge you to find an original movie (AKA not adapted from a book, play, etc) that has as much symbolism and worldwide success as Phantom of the Opera. Long live the theatre.

I admit that I am no expert in theatre, and thus do not even attempt to cite its stage value (as I mentioned in my review), but as film, it is embarassing, and most probably fails to translate whatever value it has as a play (since I have not seen it, I can't be entirely sure). I recognize your love of the stage (I have received several emails like this, and yours comes across as the most passionate and reasonable) and apologize if my review came across as virulent, but I cannot deny how awful the film comes across, and have merely opined my thoughts. Thanks for the post.

I loved the movie. It was magnificent. There are so many great symbols that mean things. But I have one question, I just noticed this my 7th time of seeing it. When the phontom ties raul to the gate and right before that, if you look in the mirror behind the phontom, there is something white in the mirror, it looks like a big pair of white pants, but its not one of the people because it's not the right shape and is not moving. If anyone has any ideas, plz let me know at njohnson03@comcast.net Thank you.

I applaud you, OG for your sincere letter. If you didn't get the point across by that, then there is no use. I have seen the play, seen the movie, and read the book. Personally, I think the movie transposes the story of the play beautifully. The symbolism in the movie is amazing, and I bet you were too busy critisizing it to even realize the commendable things occuring in the movie. I feel as if I don't have to say much more, the previous letters have said it all. One last thing, the directors and producers did not make the movie to amuse critics like yourself who cannot see the value in a movie like this; they made it for the fans like us, who will remain true to the film and the theatre version, despite the bad critique it may receive. Thanks, and I don't mean to instigate conflicts. Happy critiquing.

I love The Phantom of the Opera lots and I would like to be in it my self.

Flipcritic, how can you say all of these things? It is hard to put into words how much this movie means to me. How can you even compare Britney Spears' "songwriting" to the beautiful lyrics of the "The Phantom of the Opera"? Both the lyrics and the music stir something inside my soul that I've never felt before. I listen to the soundtrack everyday and am planning to buy the DVD. This is a musical! Of course most of it will be singing. Sexiness, sass, energy, tension, and reason-all of these were beautifully portrayed in the movie. Come on, did you not see "The Point of No Return" scene? If that's not passion, I don't know what is. I played piano for nine years, then quit two years ago with no intention of going back. Now I have started back because I wanted to learn to play the songs with "Phantom of the Opera-Movie Selections" that I ordered from Amazon. I agree fully with everything OG wrote. The only things you and I agree on is that the costumes are lovely. Clearly, Flipcritic, you are a person of no class.

Amanda, check out Rotten Tomatoes (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/phantom_of_the_opera/), and you'll realize that there are a lot of us critics who have no class. I'm sure as a theatrical event it is wonderful in its demonstrative nature. But as film? It is wanting.

I'm someone who's done many plays and thearter productions all throughout my school years, from middle to highschool. And I must say, Andrew Lloyd Webber Did amazing work to this play. Not only did he do it justice, he went beyond. I absolutally adore this movie. I do agree they went a bit over board on some seans, like how they made his deformity look radio-active when they first show it as christine pulls the mask off (while their on the stage that is) but over all he did a wonderfull job. I don't know if musicals just arn't your thing, or weather you just have bad tast in movies.

You article made tons of sense to me. I love the Phantom of the Opera movie to death, but it is easy to get sick of half open mouths staring at eachother liek they are so in love they will die. The music is really good and I think the actors given their roles did a really good job. I still love the movie. There is something unexplainable about it, or maybe it's just the music.

Citing ROTTENTOMATOES.COM is pretty useless because anyone who has ever researched Lloyd Webber will know that the critics HATE him and take great pride in trashing his work. It came as no surprise to me (and the million other Webber fans out there) that PHANTOM was butchered by several critics. Many of them stated in their review that they hated him and his musical and there review was clearly prejudiced and biased and I for one, think it's infantile and mean when they stoop to such a "low" level.

Whether you like the music or not, how can anyone deny the visual and artistic strengths of this film. I have read reviews where the critic stated the cinematography was gorgoues, the sets were gorgeous, Emmy Russom was great but Lloyd Webber sucks- the film get's an F.

Give me a break. To clearly state this film is in the same ratings category as JAWS:THE REVENGE or ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES is not just insulting but ridiculous and now I understand why so many people hate critics. And the release of PHANTOM (the film) also clearly demonstrated the ridiculous degree critics despise Webber. The director of the stage PHANTOM, Harold Prince (a genius who has to date won over 20 TONY's) stated in an interview this year that "... My respect for the material and the score is huge (meaning PHANTOM). There's a whole snob element about Andrew [Lloyd Webber] because he's so successful. But that's one hell of a good composer and score."

But despite what several ruthless critics stated, the film was nominated for several awards, 3 GOLDEN GLOBES (including BEST PICTURE) 2 Critics Choice (including BEST PICTURE), 11 GOLDEN SATELITE (including BEST PICTURE), 3 Oscars ...and several others as well (according to IMDB over 30)

This film was gorgeous and in my opinion it was one of the BEST FILMS of 2004. There is a reason why this film scores high on audience reviews. Check IMDB, AMAZON.COM, BOX OFFICVE MOJO, TRIBUTE.CA. I guess we, the public, don't know any better.

To: E Jimenez

Don't look now, but you're criticizing. So what does that make you? If you are to call the majority of published critics useless, I could say the same for you.

Bottom line, you liked it, I didn't. But there's a reason why we have our reviews published, and that's hard to deny. Our reviews speak for themselves. And your so does the arrogance of your comment.

Flipcritic,

In response to your comments, my statements were no more "arrogant" than your countless comments in your published review.

I was also pointing out a fact (not an opinion) that many who love this film (since the release of PHANTOM last year, it has spawned several new fans of the musical) are NOT aware of and that's that there are a gaz-illion Webber trashing critics out there. Having studied musical theatre for YEARS I know too much about Webber's history and as stated previously anything the man releases- whether it's a stage musical or a cinematic counterpart, it get's unjustly crucified by many critics. The same thing happened with the stage PHANTOM despite the fact that it ended up winning over 50 theatre awards across the globe. Stage versions of EVITA and CATS also got the same treatment.

I am by no means stating that you are a "Webber-bashing" critic since you actually gave the music some credit in your review but citing websites such as ROTTENTOMATOES.COM doesn't prove anything. At least to those who know Webber's history with critics. And judging by the audience reception of the film, PHANTOM continues to win more fans as evidenced by the website's I cited in my original post and by it's DVD sales.

Webber will get respect from critics eventually but like many other great composers and artists of the past, it may happen several decades after his death.

Regards.

To: E Jimenez

I appreciate your passion for Mr Weber's work. He would not be successful if he did not strike some truth within it. I am not an expert on theatre (I've never seen the play), and I am sure that PHANTOM is of considerable worth on stage. But as I have said before, as a film, its theatrical translation is embarrassing. So I'll leave it at that.

Thanks for your comments.

this is the best movie that i have ever seen.. like a miracle.perfect

I just have to say that comparing the PHANTOM lyrics to Britney Spears writing them was horrible. How can you compare incredible writing to Britney? Sheesh.

"In the dark it is easy to pretend that the truth is what you want to be."
---Music of the Night

Britney won't and would never write that good.