This is definitely the most underrated and unique version of Phantom of the Opera I've seen yet! Charles Dance's portrayal as the Phantom is very gentle and kind but debatably more mentally unstable than any other versions of the character. A lot of new plot points and characters were also added. I'll state a few less spoilery ones here: there is only one manager and he and Carlotta are married, there is no Raoul in this version, instead his brother, Philippe is used as Christine's love interest, and the Phantom's unmasked face is never seen by the audience. So as you can tell, the story is very unique, however it's also a bit slow. The entire first part is almost entirely exposition and character development, not that there's anything wrong with any of that, but the story really doesn't get started until the end of part one. So yeah, in my personal opinion, the pacing could be a bit better but it's not awful and both parts are still very engaging. However, my main problem doesn't lie with the pacing, rather the editing. Since this was made for TV, I can assume it had a fairly small budget so take this next bit with a grain of salt. The way this is cut and edited, is honestly quite confusing and weird. One second, it will be focusing on one scene and then the next it cuts to another character in a completely different setting for about five second and then do the same thing again and again for a whole scene. It was very distracting. However, there are a lot of things to still enjoy aside from Charles Dance's fantastic portrayal and how unique the story is. I also must give credit to the romance in this movie. First of all, this version shows Christine and Phillipe's childhood friendship, which makes their romance all the more believable. Well okay, Philippe was a bit shallow at first but he soon became a much more likable character who I feel truly loved Christine. I will also admit that this is one of the only versions where I actually felt that Christine truly loved the Phantom and wanted to be with him because they actually take time out of the story to have the two interact with each other and thus learn more about each other and eventually fall in love. Despite all that though, they do still make the Phantom, well, the Phantom! So that gives true weight to the decision Christine makes, even though most of us who know Phantom of the Opera know who she's going to chose. Another thing I'd like to address is the fact that this is the only Phantom of the Opera movie to date to be filmed on location in Paris, France. That's kind of sad for the other versions but very admirable for this one. I also love the musical style. It was a nice call having classic opera music. I also have to admit that I got really emotional at the end of part two to the point where tears were shed. I won't spoil what happens but when I first watched it, this was the first version I'd seen where that happened so it not only surprised me, but greatly saddened me. Overall, everything about this version is unique and I appreciate it a lot for that. It has some problems but none that keep it from being great.
Review of The Phantom of the Opera
