Fearing date-movie hell, most guys will panic at the idea of a Gothic love story set in an 1870 Paris opera house where beast hits on beauty with a nonstop assault of Andrew Lloyd Webber music. Snap out of it. Phantom, still running on Broadway after sixteen years, is a rapturous spectacle. And the movie, directed full throttle by Joel Schumacher, goes the show one better. With a cast of young hotties, it smolders. Emmy Rossum, 18, has an aching loveliness to match her singing voice as soprano…

Andrew Lloyd Webber's flamboyant smash musical has finally been made into an equally flamboyant film adaptation. Yet there's a caveat. While certainly spectacular on stage, some of that magic seems to have been lost along the way to the big screen, making The Phantom of the Opera an uninspiring cinematic event.

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The tragic opera tells the story of a disfigured musical genius (Gerald Butler) who haunts the catacombs beneath the Paris Opera, waging a reign of terror over its occupants [cue…