The Phantom, wearing a mask to hide a congenital disfigurement is obsessed with a young soprano, and he enacts every possible plan to keep her by his side
Fans of musical theater will work themselves into a lather over Joel Schumacher's by-the-book film version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's monotonous play, but most audiences will either fall asleep or hit the cinema doors running.
Joel Schumacher's film adaptation of Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera combines fingernails-on- blackboard audio agony with bamboo- under- fingernails physical torture.
Entertainment Weekly
December 23, 2004
The movie version of Lloyd Webber's swooning 1986 horror operetta has been directed, by Joel Schumacher, as if Schumacher were the world's hardest-working upholstery salesman.