"The Greatest Showman" Review - Oh What A Circus

This film was sadly a minor disappointment. I had such high hopes for this, but in the end, “The Greatest Showman” doesn’t try and become what it's meant to be and instead just focuses on the "music" part of a musical.

The acting and singing by Hugh Jackman, Michelle Williams, Zendaya, Zac Efron, and Keala Settle, are all terrific, and the songs kick so much ass (it’s the guys who did La La Land and Dear Evan Hansen, what more could you ask for). Along with the majestic and catchy songwriting, there’s also some eye popping cinematography to accompany it. But the main big plus is that each performer lets their hearts out in their respective numbers. There’s one song (Rewrite the Stars) where Zendaya and Zac Efron sing together and it’s such a gorgeous and mind blowing musical number and it makes you feel so happy in regards to how much they’ve matured as actors since the Disney days. Numbers like “The Greatest Show”, “Come Alive”, and “This Is Me” also leave you speechless at the end of it. However, there is one number Zac and Hugh sing together where they are just constantly drinking shots of whisky that any normal human being would instantly be dead from. But other than that stupid moment, all the music just rock.

And that’s the biggest problem. The problem is that the 10 songs in this movie are the only parts that get the most love. The plot is consistent, but is literally razor thin, and turned through way too fast for an hour and a half film. The only thing that barely ties the plot together is…well…the music. But just because a musical has great music doesn’t mean it’s incredible. You also have to have a well developed story and make the characters likable and understand what they’re going through. Which this fails to do. This is director, Michael Gracy’s first film. Before this, all he really did was music videos. Which is basically what “The Greatest Showman” is. It’s a string of terrific and well done music videos, and that’s really about it. I think if this movie had a better director or if this was made into an 8-10 episode Netflix series, I think P.T. Barnum’s story would’ve been done more justice.

I may be a bit harsh, but after “La La Land” blessed our lives last year, musical films need to be at least half as good as that if not better. Half of “The Greatest Showman” was found, but the rest is just lost in the circus. It really is too bad. At least they didn’t use real animals. On that note, I really hope Hugh Jackman gets more love for Logan than for this odd mess. Knowing the Oscars, I highly doubt it.

Neutral Nebs