Phantom of the Opera [1998]:
01). The Phantom… Julian Sands.
02). Christine Daaé… Asia Argento.
03). Baron Raoul de Chagny… Andrea Di Stefano
`Completely out of the blue I got a copy of Dario Argento’s Phantom… So here is goes. Oh, horror of horrors! I can’t believe I am doing this… I had to set it up quickly so there is going to be very little time for a set up. One thing with this movie Julian Sands refused to be deformed in this movie, so he wears no mask whatsoever. They say that in this version he is deformed on the inside. Also, this movie has very little plot to me so I am hoping that people will be able to keep up. If not you should be able to IMDB the plot. Because it makes no earthly sense to me, this is probably the worst Phantom movie ever! If you ask why I decided to finally review it, it is because I am bored to death, have nothing else to do and I found a way to watch the movie for free. So I decided to review it and add it to my collection.
Medusa Films… does that mean if we look at it we will die? “The Phantom of the Opera”… um, no it’s not! Ennio Marricone is actually quite a good composer (The Untouchables and many other notable movies) how did he end up doing this?! At least I know the background music should be good.
The scene begins like Batman Returns (which is actually a movie I did like, so it annoys me a little). Large rats, and the words “Mysterious bond between child and inhabitants of the darkness” appear as the cheesiest line and it makes me laugh. His mother throws him in a basket, as a baby, and sends him down the River Seine. Then we switch to some years later in 1877.
We are now at the Paris Opera House. The well scene that makes no earthly sense, they apparently unearth the Phantom and he kills them. I believe that my Erik Plushie is going to rightfully Punjab Lasso me tonight… who could blame him!
Christine comes onto the stage and begins to sing. Why is Christine walking around the Opera in a see through top? We see the phantom for the first time. Horrible wig!
Note: Dario Argento casted his daughter to play Christine in this movie and directed her in it as well.
The Phantom talks to Christine for the first time and she seems to be taken with him. Apparently the phantom is able to invade her mind with his thoughts. The dialogue here doesn’t make much sense to me.
The Phantom is controlling the motions of the rat-catcher, making him put his hand in the rat-trap. Somehow this Phantom has special mental powers, which is something I just can’t get into. He is suppose to be a genius not supernatural.
Christine gets flowers from the demoted Baron Raoul de Chagny who is actually supposed to be Vicomte Raoul de Chagny. At rehearsal Christine watches Carlotta singing Carmen and she talks to the Phantom’s voice in her head, then growls like a dog at Carlotta. The Phantom then summons her. Christine meets with the phantom and he admires her “female smell”! Worst line ever!
We scan the camera upwards were a stage hand watches them. He follows the Phantom for a little while then he goes and tells his girlfriend about it and claims to be a hero for following him.
There is a man walking around the Opera collecting information about him, is this suppose to be Gaston Leroux (because he works for the paper). If so, why did this actually interesting touch have to be in here?
The stagehand and his girlfriend talk of trying to go into the catacombs because of supposed treasure down there. I was distracted by the nice touch of a post talking of ‘La Semaine Sanglante’ or ‘The Bloody Week’ of the Commune. I do have to admit the nice touch of that there.
We finally meet Baron Raoul de Chagny, who is rather frightening looking, to me at least. Christine admits that she doesn’t love him and would allow Raoul to be the brother she never had. This was the first seen that wasn’t actually too bad.
Then we are back to the treasure hunting couple. There are close-ups of many bugs and rodents that creeps me out. SPIDER! Why, do they have to add this? I am fine with rats just not worms and spiders! The guy gets captured by the Phantom and there is this line: “I am not a Phantom, I am a rat!” never heard a truer line. The Phantom then kills Alfred (finally caught his name). The girl finds his body and tries running away. Then she notices her footsprints after trying to hide. She begins to get rid of them. Soon, the Phantom finally catches up to her. As she screams she sticks her tough out and he bits it out. EWW! I had to turn away for that.
Monsieur Buquet, who has risen in class, was frightening ballet girls with stories of the Phantom. Christine comforts them and the maid yells at him for it, before listening to what stories Buquet had to tell.
On the roof of the opera the Phantom thinks of people caught in a rat-traps. Then he thinks of Christine apparently surrounded by her hair or seaweed can’t really tell. This is another pointless scene.
We flip to Carlotta with a sore throat, and the managers talking about having Christine sing instead. Carlotta shrieks at this idea. Later Christine is singing in rehearsal. She is apparently overtaken by emotion and passes out. She is taken to her dressing room where the Phantom is there as well, after everyone leaves. Raoul listens in through the door. In a scene that for the first time resembles the novel. But, you can find it in the cartoon version. Which is less stressful to watch and the rest of the story resembles the novel more. Raoul then invades her dressing room after she leaves, lighting a candle to look around.
Then we now have Jerome (?) de Chagny, Raoul’s brother, who is originally called Philippe. Finally his brother shows up. He offers to take Raoul to cheer him up and takes him to a bath house. I hate this scene. Here Raoul, the “hero” of the piece acts worse the in the villain in the original story. Correction: Worse than the villain in the other horror version of Phantom. The one with Robert Englund and it is suppose to be very Freddy Kruger in style. It makes no sense. He also imagines that one of the women there is Christine. We also have some very bad acting.
We then have a scene in which a guy is chasing one of the ballet girls, and then the Phantom kills him and tells the girl to go home. She returns to the ballet room, where she gets reprimanded for telling lies when she tells the truth.
Christine then walks into her dressing room where the maid is getting stoned. Christine has a large dove on her head. I just needed to put that in there. Then the Phantom in a psychic-like way calls Christine to him. I have to admit, that I really like her dress in this scene. She almost gets run over by the rat-catchers in their new rat-catcher-mobile trying to catch more rats. The music is rather cheerful for the scene. Unfortunately it doesn’t last long; they get into an accident and are killed.
This Phantom is the opposite of a gentleman. He makes Christine row the boat to him instead of doing it himself like in the original; or even providing a horse for her to ride instead of walking the long distance. Very un-gentlemen like.
His lair isn’t too bad though, probably the largest pipe organ I have seen in phantom movies (get your mind out of the gutter!) “Sing for me!” He said, and I start hearing a good Phantoms in my head, ah Michael Crawford or anyone except him. Christine is almost orgasmic as she sings.
The next scene is her lying naked in bed and the Phantom leans over her naked as well. I don’t like this scene; it is just annoying in many ways. He talks about his double nature as they lay together, does this mean he is a Were-rat? This might explain some things. What I don’t know, but it might help.
The Phantom tells Christine to stay there as he is planning to make sure that Christine is going to take over for Carlotta. She tries arguing but he forces her to stay. The Phantom then speaks to Carlotta from behind the mirror as he tries to threaten her to get her to step aside. Instead she blames one of the men in the room. After hearing someone call to her she goes to the costume room. The Phantom then threatens her physically to step aside. She doesn’t listen. He has also sent a threatening letter to the managers.
We then have the Phantom shirtless chopping down the thing holding up the chandelier, which is more reminiscent of a lumberjack then a phantom. He does this as Carlotta performs on stage. The ceiling starts to crack and then the chandelier comes crashing down. Then a prop falls down onto Carlotta, still not killing her! Out of curiosity how is Christine suppose to perform if she is being held captive by the Phantom? So why do all this destruction, due to Carlotta performing after you have told Christine to stay put? They can’t put Christine on stage instead of Carlotta if they can’t find her you moron! Isn’t the Phantom supposed to be a genius not an idiot!
Then he returns to her to tell her the role is hers, she says she doesn’t want it. He then proceeds to rape her. A). I hate this idea because this did NOT happen in the original, nor is it something that should be there at all! B). this is Dario Argento’s daughter!
The next scene is another horrible one. Apparently Christine just doesn’t do it for him because, she watches him secretly, in a scene in which the Phantom seems to have sex with the rats! No kidding! That is all I am going to say other than OMFG Ew!
When he is done Christine has disappeared. Do you blame her?! He is (psychically, I think) able to see where she is running to. She runs into Raoul on her way out and gets away. She takes him to the roof and tells Raoul all about the Phantom as the Phantom listens in. The maid comes and gets Christine to rehears for Faust because of what happened to Carlotta.
At the performance apparently all the victims of the chandelier crash were compensated with free seats to the opera because all the wounded people were there at her performance. I love theatre and opera, but if a chandelier hit me, I would not be returning to the theatre that quickly! One of the rat-catchers survived the accident, and was making his way to the performance. He shows up on stage and calls her the Phantom’s whore. Then the Phantom jumps onto the stage all Batmen-like and takes Christine away. Then we have some more bad acting.
She is passed out and when she wakes up she hits him on the head with a large rock and proceeds to scream for Raoul, who is following them. Afterwards she apologizes to the Phantom for hitting him and they begin to leave together (make up your bloody mind!) Raoul finds some guns down there. This actually makes sense considering the year is 1877; they were probably down there because of the Paris Commune.
Soon Raoul catches up to them and shoots the Phantom. Then the Phantom says that if they catch Christine they would kill her (why?) and he turns to Raoul and asks him to help her. He then sends Christine and Raoul away in the boat and Christine screams for him. Why she cares for him I don’t know. He is then shot five more times and is still fighting. Christine is still screaming for him. Then he is stabbed and falls into the water. We end on Christine crying, and me hoping that Captain Jack Harkness will walk in the door with a forgetting pill.
If you have any desire to see this I recommend watching the Phantom Reviewers review of it, it is far better and has comedy in it that makes it worth seeing that way. The worst part is, is that at the end of this movie Raoul and the Phantom work together to save Christine (even if for a brief moment). I have this theory that if they had Raoul and the Phantom work together to rescue Christine and Gustave at the end of Love Never Dies, it might improve this a little. It is sad that an ending similar to the Dario Argento movie might improve Love Never Dies, but only a little.
I don’t know what I will review next possibly the Wishbone episode I got my hands on that one a while ago, but just haven’t watched it yet. In regards to this one I highly recommend staying away from it. If you like the movies to be horror watch the Robert Englund version it is far superior.
