i never think i would find myself write a bad review of a dario argento movie . i have be a fan of his film since the beginning and have every one of them on video and laserdisc or dvd . i just purchase the dvd of il fantasma dellopera and however and and i must say that i regretfully agree with those who feel this be an all time low for the director . this movie be so basically bad that it make me wonder if i haven not be make excuse for argento for some time now . it hard to believe that in this day and age and with a significant amount of resource and first class collaborator like ennio morricone and gerard brach and julian sand and the picture still manage to completely fail in any kind of dramatic sense . while credibility have never be a big thing for argento and here he push the limit and trip himself into complete absurdity . the film open with a sewer rat single handedly save a basket with child from the edge of a waterfall and go all the way down from there . be we suppose to even remotely accept that sewer rat could possibly save a baby from death and raise him like and say and the ape raise tarzan . the bond between the phantom and the sewer rat and which be central to the rest of the picture and come from this scene . unfortunately and this set up be so ludicrous that every time the issue of love between the phantom and the rat resurfaces ( and it do and often and ineptly ) you cringe because there be no way you can dispell the absurdity of it all . why and do a tiny female rat breast fee the phantom until he be of age to fee himself . puhleeze . the story meander hopelessly from one ridiculous scene to the next . one man die and those around him react a if he have only burp . a woman get her tongue rip out of her mouth for no other apparent reason than the fact that nobody else in a dario argento movie have that happen to them before . another man hand be gnaw at by rat and he just leave it there while the hungry little beast go to work on it and just so that we can get a good look at it . loyalties come and go for no reason whatsoever . the climactic crash of the chandelier scene look cheap and completely unimaginative and with some gore try to compensate for a total lack of spectacle . and even ennio morricone music and unbelievably and seem oddly purposeless a it play monotonously against every scene . and then there asia argento and who hysterically missacts every line and botch every shot of herself lipsynching to what be undeniably and all too obviously somebody else singing . would it have cost a lot to rehearse until her lipsynching look real . never mind . asia have yet to prove and in my view and that she be anything but a one note actress who play every part and every scene a a possessed nymphette and and this script doesn not help . the script and in fact and never deliver any information about christine or anyone such that we could even intuit what she find so spellbind about the phantom ( after all and he be a murderous sewer ratboy . ) but argento seem satisfied that asia lunatic like expression be enough for his audience to get the story . well and they aren not and and the story be a bust . the most perplexing thing about fantasma be that argento do not need to make it because he have already make his phantom movie . it be call opera and be fill with classic argento bravura piece . if you want to see the master touch and take a look at the ( and this be very important . ) widescreen version of that film . not this .