[RLacey]

I've just finished watching Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera on DVD (a Christmas present from my brother).

I have some mixed feelings. In some respects I loved it - I'm not a great fan of Lloyd Webber's music, and yet love the main themes from Phantom, while Joel Schumacher turned in some clever directing (!) and the acting is better than I'd been led to believe.

On the other hand, watching the film reminds me how useless the music at the end is - the sheer number of theme repetitions begins to wear after a while - and the direction seems to become less interesting as the film goes along. I also felt that there were about three too many black-and-white scenes.

I notice that the MetaCritic score for this is 40, but I wouldn't take too much notice of that. Essentially, and looking at the reviews listed there confirms this somewhat, people who liked the musical will like the film and people who didn't won't. I fall into the former category, and so enjoyed it, though it was feeling like a guilty pleasure by the end.