I wonder why so typically French a story was transferred to Budapest. In the novel, the opera house is as much a star of the story as the characters. It makes no sense to shift the story.<br /><br />The acting is OK at best and often quite silly. Overall this is a rather cheezy and lame attempt at the story, with the usual attempts to rewrite and revise the story.<br /><br />I often wish that someone would attempt a version that is truer to the original book, even though it was penny-dreadful claptrap. All too often they try to make the Phantom so sympathetic that they lose sight of his psychopathic side. However, in the original novel Christine is such a stupid drip that she does get quite annoying.