A disfigured musical genius living beneath the Paris Opera House covets the attention of a young soprano. Adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s stage musical starring Gerard Butler and Emmy Rossum and directed by Joel Schumacher Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s Phantom first looked set to rear its misshapen head way back in 1990. That was until the composer divorced leading lady Sarah Brightman and the production collapsed. Almost 15 years later, the Phantom has finally been captured on camera. Since the musical was a box-office smash on stages around the world, the movie version is at least a useful document of a popular phenomenon. However, with so much time having elapsed, can there really be anybody alive who wants to see ‘The Phantom Of The Opera‘ who hasn‘t seen it already?

To the credit of director Joel Schumacher, The Phantom Of The Opera is at the very least a handsomely mounted production that, rather like Rob Marshall‘s Chicago, will please those who‘ve taken the stage show to their hearts. There are also aspects that will appeal to Lloyd Webber novices, such as the comely Emmy Rossum, the young American actress who plays Christine, star of the Paris Opera. While Christine longs for the touch of the Vicomte Raoul (Wilson), the ingénue is the object of someone else‘s desire. He is the titular Phantom (Butler), a disfigured man forced to live in the catacombs beneath the Opera House who will come to have a strange influence on Christine‘s career. If this all sounds pretty familiar, that‘s because Schumacher has done very little to open up the musical besides adding black-and-white bookends. Understandably, the director wants to play to the strengths of the stage version, namely a solid cast and those Lloyd Webber compositions. As far as the former is concerned, Rossum finds herself in excellent company, with Minnie Driver - very good as an overblown opera star - and Miranda Richardson, fine and fruity as Madame Giry. With Simon Callow and Ciarán Hinds also on-board, the supporting cast is also impressive. Heck, even Jennifer Ellison (aka her out of ‘Brookside‘) is okay as Christine‘s best friend.

Unfortunately, Gerard Butler (whose biggest screen mission to date was playing second banana to Angelina Jolie in the lamentable Tomb Raider 2) isn‘t sufficiently skilled to combine rage and passion and so his Phantom simply comes off as a bit moody. But more troublesome are the songs. Even those with a loathing for Lloyd Webber have to admit he‘s banged out a few good tunes in his time - even if he is a little too dependent on rearranging Mendlesohn‘s greatest hits. However, with Phantom, he finds himself at a peculiar halfway house. It‘s almost as if the composer can‘t decide whether he wants to create a rock opera or a proper operetta and so settles for something in between. While entertaining for the most part, The Phantom Of The Opera also represents the unsatisfying dilution of two distinct musical forms.