Andrew Lloyd Webber's Love Never Dies [Blu-ray]
Andrew Lloyd Webber's Love Never Dies - DVD format if you really want it
Okay, I definitely have a lot to write in regards to this trash. I knew it was bad, I anticipated it being awful, but I wanted to see it anyway because I never had a chance to view this vomit inducing material. Only thing is I wasn't going to pay a dime to see it, Andrew Lloyd Webber already got the $30 I shelled out for the soundtrack, which I ended up giving away to some crazy phan that actually liked it, he already pocketed a large amount of money from myself, my friends, my family, my exes and Shawn because at one point or another they've supported my phantom addiction/obsession by getting me tickets to the show or buying me memorabilia as a present. He was not going to pocket anything from myself or anyone I know for this garbage. So I eagerly awaited to get my hands on a copy through the library when I learned it was out on DVD and Blu-Ray. The AV librarian, the kind soul that she is did think I'd enjoy this because she didn't really know how horrible the sequel is so she did make a purchase of the Blu-Ray for our DVD and Blu-Ray collection, so I snatched it up when I saw it and bought it home finally getting to view this monstrosity for free, knowing ultimately I was going to hate it, but still wanting to give the viewing a chance anyway. That being said even though I have offered links through my amazon account to the DVD and Blu-Ray, and even though I do make money (which I actually have only made $12 in two years of blogging) if you order anything through my links, DO NOT PURCHASE THIS, unless for some reason you actually do dig LND, some people actually do for some reason.
One note - I'm sorry to the actors involved in this production and all productions of LND, and just because I'm giving LND a bad review, is nothing against your performance or your work. In fact I'm sorry to anyone involved in any of the LND productions.
Ben Lewis played the phantom, he looked like a dumb ass guido wearing a 1940s phantom costume. Gone was the elegant, dramatic, powerful character we all know and love.
Anna O'Byrne played Christine. She reminded me of a flighty raging lunatic when she played the character, and she reminded me someone I know in life similar to how Christine was portrayed here, Meg was supposed to be the raging lunatic in this version, I wonder if she was training for the role of Meg first and mixed up characters a little.
Sharon Millercamp played Meg, Meg's character was just plain annoying in LND. High pitched voice, way too much crazy energy and the character of Meg was just all together distorted, pretty much that was the way of things for every single character.
This production on Blu-Ray was filmed at the Regent Theatre in Melbourne, because Andrew Lloyd Webber took the production to Australia and revamped it a little, even though it's still terrible. We all know, well the phans who investigated LND know how horrible all the characters have turned out in this version. Their original characterization was pretty much murdered, destroyed, shredded. Instead of wishing to help the phantom Mme. Giry is a jealous bitch who's pissed off that Christine has come back into the picture. She is out to destroy Christine and Gustave. Gustave is the son of Christine and the phantom. Yes, the best part of this sequel *sarcasm here* is that the phantom and Christine somehow had sex after Christine left with Raoul and now the son Raoul thinks is his, is really Erik's son. Meg is a lunatic, a raging lunatic who is in love with Erik and wants her for himself. Ultimately this sort of works for the weird ending when Meg accidentally shoots and kills Christine. Christine's death scene seemed to be toned down in this version, but I heard when LND first came out it was like 10 minutes long. Because really now, someone who's been shot in the stomach has time to sing a few verses, or more then a few in this case. When Anna O'Byrne performed the death scene, she looked more like she was in slight discomfort and some severe pain, less like she was on the verge of dying. When she actually did die Ben Lewis looked more disgusted and surprised then distraught over Christine's death after they were finally reunited. Raoul was also supposed to have left because Christine chose to sing, ultimately choosing the phantom even though she didn't know it, but somehow he magically appears on the dock after she's been shot. Where the hell did he come from?!? The music was pretty bad, the songs had no flow, the catchiest song was the beauty underneath, with a weak ending. Someone on twitter said that you could recognize Sunset Boulevard in some of the score, I definitely heard melodies that I recognized from Sunset Boulevard, also ALW haphazardly placed some of the music and lyrics from the original score of POTO into this production. Is it a crime if he rips off his own music?!? The costumes were garish, over the top or definitely didn't fit for the character that was wearing them, the sets were somewhat ornate, the set for beauty underneath was a little on the bizarre side. Overall this whole thing was a giant viewing of 2 hours and 1 minute of what the fuck ALW?!? I can now confidently say after this that LND is not worth any more of my time. I'll be on to reviewing phan phiction when I get to read it and other movies of POTO at this point the slasher Robert Englund POTO is worth more salt then LND.
I had to take an allergy pill when I first started watching this at home, so I can pretty much say I'm allergic to LND, I'd rather watch the room over and over and over again before I view LND a second time, and the room was pretty terrible.
"Mind if I start shooting things now, this is a miserable beating of a dead horse," Shawn said to me while he was watching parts of this. I asked to quote him because he was saying some pretty classic things, unfortunately he was making me laugh too much and the only thing I wrote down was one quote. He wasn't shooting anything real by the way, he was just asking to go play his video game lol.
