The Phantom of the Opera

The Phantom of the Opera is a lavish film version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's successful stage musical. Appointing Joel Schumacher to direct the film version was not a bad choice. Good taste and the art of understatement are not things you typically associate with this director, and that suits Webber's musical perfectly, as it revels in the opulent and the effect-driven, both in the music and in the staging.

Schumacher and Webber have tacked on a somewhat superfluous framing story, so that the actual plot becomes a flashback. In it the dreaded Phantom of the Opera terrorises the theatre's owners and its staff in 19th-century Paris. He sees to it that the modest but talented Christine Daae makes a resoundingly successful debut as understudy to the theatre's insufferable diva Carlotta. She is played with riotous comedy by Minnie Driver, the only member of the cast who does not sing her own songs.

The Phantom is in reality a tormented man and a musical genius with a disfigured face, which he hides behind a half-mask. He hides beneath the theatre in the catacombs when he is not haunting the wings or training Christine's bright voice. As chance would have it, the theatre's new patron is the young nobleman Raoul, who was Christine's childhood sweetheart. It is love at first sight, which creates chaos in the world of the theatre, as the Phantom is also secretly in love with his young protégée.