THE PHANTOM MENACE

REVIEWED - THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA: It is 18 years since Andrew Lloyd Webber's most successful show opened in the West End, and those of us whose stomachs turn at the sound of his Lordship's second-hand romantic flourishes were beginning to believe - wish, pray, hope - that whoever is in charge of such things had simply forgotten about the film version, writes Donald Clarke

Sadly, the universe is not so benevolent. Here it is: two hours and 20 minutes of empty, baroque splendour, during which the same, dreary melody, occasionally augmented by screeching guitars and reedy Thatcherite synthesisers, meanders very slowly towards nowhere in particular. Phantom fans not outraged by the absence of Michael Crawford will probably like it well enough. Everybody else beware.

Joel Schumacher, a former production designer with a well-developed sense of camp, was, in some ways, a perfect choice for the project. And, to be fair, the picture is as laden with chocolate-box glamour as any producer hoping to piggyback on the success of Moulin Rouge could ask for.

Gerard Butler, a barely famous Scotsman with an unfortunate habit of whistling his sibilants, is perfectly adequate as the titular anti-hero, who, ravaged face half-concealed, haunts the sewers beneath the Paris Opera House. The teenage Emmy Rossum, playing his protégé, Christine, sings quite beautifully, but appears so astonishingly fragile that one can scarcely look at her for fear that her porcelain features might shatter. And, rather astonishingly, there is a hilarious turn from Minnie Driver as the shrieking diva whom Christine is destined to replace.

But the longer the picture goes on (and, golly, does it go on) the more one is reminded to what degree the original show relied on coups de theatre - the hurtling chandelier, the punt drifting through the steamy sewer - which look distinctly ho-hum when projected in a cinema that recently hosted The Day After Tomorrow.

A more surprising revelation, considering this is a work set in the mid-19th century featuring pastiches of that era's grand opera, is the extent to which Phantom of the Opera now stinks of the 1980s. Everything about it radiates excess, vulgarity and conspicuous consumption. I think I may even have spied a Ra-Ra skirt in there somewhere.