THE ANGEL OF THE OPERA: Sherlock Holmes Meets the Phantom of the Opera

Hot on the heels of Nicholas Meyer's indifferent The Canary Trainer (1993) comes another meeting between Sherlock Holmes and the Phantom of the Opera. This time Holmes wears a bowler, speaks like an imposter (at one point he ""roars,"" at another he says, ""I'm fine""), loses his amanuensis, Dr. Watson, for his own colorless, presumptuous cousin Dr. Henry Vernet, and shines only feebly as a detective. The result is less Conan Doyle than Gaston Leroux. All the principals of Leroux's Phantom -- the hopeless love, soprano Christine DaaÉ; the rival, Vicomte Raoul de Chagny; even the late Joseph Buquet and the disappearing horse CÉsar -- are trotted out yet again, but they don't seem to have any more to do than actors taking their curtain calls, and by the time they come together for the obligatory group portrait in the cellars deep beneath the Opera, you'll be hoping they all get blown up together. Sorry, Sherlock -- no joy in these lukewarm leftovers.