Phantom

David Edelstein is a better man than I am.

You’ll hardly be surprised to hear that Joel Schumacher’s film of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera (Warner Bros.) made for the most excruciating two-and-a-half hours I’ve ever spent in a theater.

When I first saw the preview for Phantom, I noted to myself that a)I’d rather be a prisoner at Abu Ghraib than in a theater playing this movie, b)there is no woman in the world that I would watch this for, and c)I would feel entirely justified in using lethal violence against anyone who suggested that I should see it.

And then I saw the “Directed by Joel Schumacher” tagline.