The Phantom of the Opera
Metascore
40 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 39 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 39
  2. Mixed: 14 out of 39
  3. Negative: 15 out of 39
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  1. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Carrie Rickey
    38
    Combines fingernails-on-blackboard audio agony with bamboo-under-fingernails physical torture.
  2. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Dana Stevens
    30
    Lord Lloyd Webber's thorough acquaintance with the canon of 18th- and 19th-century classical music is not in doubt, but his attempt to force a marriage between that tradition and modern musical theater represents a victory of pseudo-populist grandiosity over taste - an act of cultural butchery akin to turning an aviary of graceful swans and brilliant peacocks into an order of Chicken McNuggets.
  3. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    25
    Crashing chandelier, crashing bore.
  4. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    25
    It has a little something to irritate everybody. People looking for romance will find only cardboard lovers. People looking for a resounding musical will find it odd that the camera runs away from the lip-synching cast. And people looking for opera -- well, shame on you.
  5. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Liam Lacey
    25
    Phantom still an auditory lobotomy.
  6. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Michael Sragow
    25
    In Schumacher's relentlessly arrhythmic and tone-deaf film, Gerard Butler plays the title role as if he were just plucked out of Monty Python's lumberjack chorus.
  7. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Shawn Levy
    16
    It adds up to a truly taxing couple of hours: ham acting, visual noise, aural torture, elementary plotting and unconvincing emotions.
  8. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Stephanie Zacharek
    30
    This film "Phantom" takes everything that's wrong with Broadway and puts it on the big screen in a gaudy splat.
  9. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Nathan Rabin
    30
    Adding an additional layer of cheese to a project that already reeks hopelessly of Velveeta, Schumacher pumps up the empty spectacle, stranding his fetching-but-lifeless mannequins amid giant sets and overblown production numbers.
  10. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Jorge Morales
    30
    This Phantom's an overblown mess of ostentatious razzmatazz. Sure, all the ingredients of camp are there (oh, the hubris!), but this isn't a so-bad-it's-good classic. It's worse.
  11. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Carina Chocano
    30
    The real problem with "Phantom" is the problem with Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals in general. It's a slow-moving orgy of lowbrow grandiosity that's as tedious as it is overblown and pretentious.
  12. The New Yorker
    Reviewed by: Anthony Lane
    30
    We should not be surprised, then, if this bellowing beast of a movie looks and sounds like the extended special-edition remix of a Duran Duran video.
  13. Dallas Observer
    Reviewed by: Bill Gallo
    20
    Runs two hours and 20 minutes and plays like 10 days in the county jail.
  14. Slate
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    20
    Made for the most excruciating two-and-a-half hours I've ever spent in a theater.
  15. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joe Morgenstern
    30
    An experience best likened to being battered by hurricane-force winds generated by an organ with all stops pulled permanently out.
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User Reviews

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User Score
8.3 out of 10

Universal acclaim- based on 389 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 244 out of 291
  2. Mixed: 12 out of 291
  3. Negative: 35 out of 291
  1. TaylaM.
    10
    This HAS to be my favorite movie of all time. i basicly listen to it every day. I wish i could sing like any of them. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!!
  2. grandpajoe6191
    6
    "The Phantom of the Opera" isn't much of a entertaining movie. The acting isn't good and the story is just obedient to the musical. Its the music that you'll like, just the music.… Full Review »
  3. ViggoS.
    0
    I always thought that Gerard Butler was straight, but i don't anymore. this movie is so boring, that it would kill a hamster. (In lovely memory of my hamster) the hold story doesn't make any sense.… Full Review »
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