This romantic musical epic is about a mysterious masked figure, Erik (Gerald Butler), who roams the undergrounds of 19th century Paris, centering his activity around (or under) the Opera Populaire, where he tutors a beautiful young soprano, Christine (Emmy Rossum), who goes on to upstage the city's most famous opera singer, Carlotta (Minnie Driver). The Phantom thinks he's found love, until Christine's childhood boyfriend, Vicomte de Chagny (Patrick Wilson) shows up. When Christine rejects the Phantom he finds himself outraged as he was the one who helped train Christine to sing and to gain her fame. Now obsessed with making Christine his own the Phantom plans a plot to ruin the opera house and in the midst of all the turmoil whisk Christine away to his underworld where she will be forever his prisoner.

The most important thing about an adaptation of Phantom of the Opera is the music as that is what the play is all about, and for the most part the music was brilliant and wonderful. I am sure that somewhere there has been a better cast of singers and that it has been done different and maybe even better but the movie does a wonderful job of introducing the mainstream audience with may not go to plays and theatres with the brilliance of this operatic tale. Gerard Butler has a dark tambourine singing voice that just echoes so well and fills you with Erik’s passion and obsession. While Emmy Rossum has a sweet joyous voice that gives off her innocence and her path into the dark with Erik through her high notes and lovely voice. The rest of the cast does a superb job but it is Emmy and Gerard that are the most important and they do not let down.

Joel Schumacher has opportunities that no theatre production would ever have and that is special effects. It allows him to paint the Phantom of the Opera as more grandesque and wondrous as you almost feel like you are in the Opera house and Paris’s bustling streets are just outside the walls. It allows for them to have wider spaces and the dungeon to feel more real, sure there is nothing wrong with having to use your imagination during the theatrical performance but Joel Schumacher gives you the entire world in the movie. I was entranced by the performances and evolved by the music, a very well done adaptation of the play and book and well worth seeing.
4 stars out of 5