The Phantom Of The Opera

Watching the film, it seems incomprehensible that this is the longest running musical of all time (maybe). The story has been simplified to the level of a cartoon, the music is portentous and the lyrics are more risible than profound.

It only goes to show that what works in the theatre does not necessarily work anywhere else. Of course, there are exceptions, Chicago being one, but what cinema does is eliminate stagecraft and expose the body of the book, leaving the songs exposed.

The story is The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, with added nasty bits. According to this adaptation, The Phantom escapes from a circus as a child and takes up residence in the bowels of the Paris Opera House, living in a dank cave for decades all alone with an organ and a limitless supply of candles.

Apparently, he educates himself, writes music, eats well, has an expensive wardrobe and hides half his face behind a mask, due, one imagines, to a disfiguring skin condition. Unlike Quasimodo, he is not averse to bumping off the theatre staff when they irritate him and his interest in a little girl, called Christine, is less than healthy, especially for a social misfit whose sex life is deader than that of The Elephant Man.

The little girl grows up and after those weird half-forgotten, half-remembered singing lessons with the funny-peculiar music teacher, she joins the chorus at the Opera House and one day when the prima donna (Minnie Driver) has one of her temperamental strops, she steps into the lead and is, naturally, a triumph. Instead of being proud of his protegee, The Downstairs Man becomes jealous of her success, as well as the new owner of the Opera House, dishy Raoul (Patrick Wilson), who goes into full wooing mode.

Finally, half mad with desire, he snatches Christine and carries her off to his lair, where lit candelabras rise out of the murky lake that surrounds his awesome organ. Raoul follows and makes "Unhand her, you swine!" threats that Big P ignores. As the plot implodes into posh tosh, the music of Lord Webber of Lloyd causes your ears to flood, as tiresome songs bob on the waves, like tossed cartons of clotted cream.

Joel Schumacher, who lost the Batman magic after taking over the franchise from Tim Burton, does what is known in the trade as a professional job - shorthand for nothing special. He's better upstairs than down and has the advantage of gold-plated cameo performers such as Simon Callow, Ciaran Hinds, Murray Melvin and (fleetingly) James Fleet, in addition to the doyenne of superlatives, Miranda Richardson, and that good sport Ms Driver. Once he goes into the phantomesque landscape of catacombish tunnels, where The Man In The Plastic Mask lives, imagination drowns in cliche.

The script by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Schumacher lacks everything, including humour. The performances of Gerard Butler and Emmy Rossum, as Phanty and Chris, are mixed. He is too conventionally good looking and broad shouldered to be convincing as a loony in a sewer, while she is utterly believable as a teenager who hasn't slept with anyone yet. His singing voice is amateur dramatic society Level 2; hers is Pop Idol ballad section 9 out of 10.

As for the music of the night, it ain't Sondheim.