Merry Christmas everyone.

We went to Gurney Plaza, Penang (there is no decent cinema in ALor Star!) to watch Phantom of the Opera, and I find that it is a good adaptation of the original theater production. Musically, it stayed faithful to the original score, with some minor cut and paste which worked seamlessly.

Ok, spoilers ahead. You guys who haven't watch the movie, avert your gaze.

Here are some aspects which I liked most about this adaptation:
1. They were right to put the chandelier crash at the end as the climax. In the original production, the chandelier crashed just before intermission. (The chandelier crash is the mechanical hallmark of Phantom of the Opera musical). The chandelier 'rise' at the beginning of the show, giving color to the initially black and white screen, is also good.
2. The Phantom has a more foreboding, gothic and dark character. A movie obviously have more visual means to portray this compared to a theater. His masks look cool too. The aspect that the Phantom was born with facial deformities with history of being treated un-humanely during childhood is a new feature. In theater, the Phantom's origin is not explored, and it is left to the audience's imagination whether he is human or ghost, why is he deformed and why he came to haunt the opera house.
3. Christine's performance in "Think of Me"

Some aspects which I didn't like:
1. Christine's acting. Yeah, the young lady has amazing singing prowess, but her acting skills leave much to be desired. All she did throughout the movie was look dazed or confused.
2. The sword-fight part was another addition in the movie version. The illogical part is that, why did Raoul not capture the Phantom immediately after he defeated him, or at least tie him to a tree or something. Instead, they want to leave him there, and then the very next day, stage a complicated plan to capture the phantom in the opera house, his own domain. Sure, the director wants to make Raoul more macho by putting in a sordfight scene (in the original production, Raoul is a wimp), but at least make it look like Raoul defeated the Phantom, but somehow he manages to escape.
3. Phantom's performance in "Music of the Night". There were parts which he did not articulate well. Maybe I am biased, because I really think no one can beat Michael Crawford's (the original Phantom) rendition; and it is my favorite song of the show.

All in all, they did justice to Sir Andrew Lloyd Weber's musical ingenuity. In the movie, it is clearer who is singing in which context, especially in complex intertwined songs like Prima Donna and Masquerade. In the theater, it is hard to catch who is singing where, when all the performers are on stage. I watched the movie on THX; and yet in the musical theater where the orchestra plays live, the real music is more 'surround' than the THX surround system.

Happy New Year y'all.


Yong