While the original story and most of the adaptations present a guy who is a sinister mastermind, the 2004 Phantom never does anything to show that he’s a danger to Christine and Raoul.Ĭase in point: written into this movie and not appearing in previous adaptations is a swordfight between the Phantom and Raoul in a graveyard. The plot of The Phantom of the Opera doesn’t work if the Phantom doesn’t present any sort of credible threat. Of course, the miscasting doesn’t really matter all that much, because… The Phantom is a Schmuck In other words, he could have done a Phantom who had some sex appeal while also playing somebody who is physically ugly.
He’s also got sex appeal out the wazoo, but more due to natural charisma than rugged good looks. Banderas, for the record, is about 10 years older than Butler but has more range to him as an actor (possibly because he’s had more experience).
Butler was 35 in this role, and the makeup crew made him look younger, not older.Īntonio Banderas was in the running for the Phantom, but Webber and Schumacher went in a different direction. That would place him at leasy in his 50s or 60s. In the film, Madame Giry explains that she met the Phantom as a child. Gerard Butler is also way too young for this role. If you want Gerard Butler’s sexy body all over your film, you cast him as Raoul, who is supposed to be attractive. If the audience isn’t repulsed by the character, then they don’t understand Christine’s plight. As I’ve said time and again in these essays, I think making the Phantom sexy ruins some of the story. The movie did everything possible to emphasize his sex appeal, including turning the Phantom’s legendary disfigurement into the equivalent of a bad sunburn. The problem is that he was horribly miscast. This movie didn’t suck because of him he did what he was told to do. Nothing he’s done as an actor has really blown me away, but I’ve never walked out of a film thinking he stunk it up, either.
Let’s get this out of the way right now: I don’t have a problem with Gerard Butler. Even so, I deem it to be markedly inferior, dropping the ball as a love story and making just enough changes to render the plot of the musical nonsensical. Notably, this film is an adaptation of the Broadway musical, not the original novel. The result is a lot of pretty sets but a story that has very little substance. Schumacher’s career was still recovering from the debacle that was Batman and Robin, and Webber had lost whatever magic he once had. This film is a result of director Joel Schumacher teaming up with Andrew Lloyd Webber. The 2004 Phantom of the Opera film has a fairly large fanbase, and I think that mostly reflects the fact that Gerard Butler is a sexy man.
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