He is a better singer. But he's too smooth for the character, IMO. I like how rough and rocky Butler's voice is. Suits a barbaric character (which the Phantom is, despite his attempts to be a gentleman). To be fair, though, I suppose it is important that the film Phantom is very sexed up.
I don't know if I really agree with that, which may explain our disagreement to some extent. I've never really seen the Phantom as barbaric or only pretending to be a gentleman - certainly, he can be cruel and ungentlemanlike, but the civilization is genuine, that's not his problem. Being incapable of loving and being loved in a healthy way is his problem. I've also always thought, but that may be a wider shared sentiment, that Raoul is kind of a loser and that Christine is merely settling for him; the Phantom is twice the man Raoul is, even if he's sort of evil.
Also: Butler is hot and Crawford decidedly is not. 

Yeah. That's generally not a factor I care much about in male actors.
Just finished reading The Phantom of the Opera
- 16/08/2010 07:51:19 PM
974 Views
I love that book
- 16/08/2010 08:19:04 PM
937 Views
Hmmmm.
- 16/08/2010 10:05:46 PM
942 Views
it was a book first
- 16/08/2010 10:56:17 PM
849 Views
- 16/08/2010 10:56:17 PM
849 Views
You don't say.
- 16/08/2010 11:08:40 PM
910 Views
- 16/08/2010 11:08:40 PM
910 Views
i can repeat the same song for forever for days at a time
- 16/08/2010 11:10:42 PM
899 Views
Precisely.
- 16/08/2010 11:16:13 PM
898 Views
i presume you've seen that scene in the movie?
- 16/08/2010 11:27:03 PM
913 Views
I have, but I'm too used to the CD version of the music to like the movie that much.
- 16/08/2010 11:55:55 PM
906 Views
I much prefer Gerard Butler's voice.
- 17/08/2010 06:08:35 PM
919 Views
Great book.
- 17/08/2010 02:54:19 PM
1057 Views

