Has anyone seen Phantom of the Opera.  My parents have offered to babysit this weekend and I don't want to waste this opportunity on a lousy movie.  And wasn't there a hair survey going on?  I can't find the thread and I wanted to see everyone had to say.

Entertainment Weekly gave it a C- in a review.. 

They said that The Phantom wasn't particularly good "he seemed more like the Phantom of the Sophomore dorms" than the Phantom of the Opera..

They enjoyed Christine's part aside from the fact that "she seemed just a bit more innocent than a Disney heroine."  *laughs*

I loved the stage musical when I saw it, and I will still pay to see it on screen, but from the reviews I'm not sure how it will go.  But, I'm a Phantom fan, so I guess I'll be sucked in by that...   

I saw the stage production in London last summer and absolutely LOVED it! It was the highlight of the entire trip. Unfortunately our seats were in the very last row of the uppermost balcony, so seeing the movie at least provided a better view of things, if nothing else. 

I have the original soundtrack with Michael Crawford (omigosh, he has the most amazing voice on earth! It just makes me melt! ) and Sarah Brightman, which I listen to almost constantly (I'm obsessed, I know  ), so hearing the songs come from different voices was a bit weird at first. Plus the theatre I saw it in didn't have surround sound, which was doubly annoying. Plus the editing was horrible and you could totally tell they weren't really singing (especially Christine), even though they were the actors' real singing voices. Plus I couldn't get it out of my head that Emmy Rossum, who plays Christine, also played the daughter who gets murdered in Mystic River, which kinda messed things up. Plus the Phantom was MUCH too tall dark and handsome. 

But I LOVE the story and I LOVE the music, so I'd pay to see it anytime. I also like the fact (unlike most critics in general, which is why I think it's gotten such low reviews) that except for some added dialogue and the extra backstory, the movie's almost scene-for-scene exactly the same as the stage production (thanks to Andrew Lloyd Weber helping to write the screenplay). I LOVE live theatre, so having seen Phantom onstage already, that was a big plus for me.

I'm pretty wary of adapted screenplays in general; I'm very much a purist when it comes to translating stories onto film. Still, I think this movies is about as good a film version of Phantom as we can hope for. But if you don't like live theatre, aren't familiar with the show or don't like the show (Ebert disliked it b/c he didn't like the original score), it probably won't do much for you. One also has to keep in mind that film tends to focus more on facial expression, individual emotions, and smaller details, while live theatre is more about the words, the music and the overall mood. So the overall experience is going to be different no matter what.

Oh, and Minnie Driver was fabulous. 

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No need to worry about that here. If and when you do see it onstage, you'll probably be surprised how similar it really is.

I finally went out and bought the full original cast recording today. A bit pricey, but definitely worth it to replace the old abridged soundtrack I have that skips all through the last track. 

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Me too, a couple of summers ago. I haven't seen the movie!