The Greatest Showman

2017 musical biopic

Rating: 13/20

Plot: Phineas Taylor Barnum sings his way to the top of the entertainment industry with the help of some human curiosities and a gullible society. 

There are loads of moments that make this big movie musical worthy of seeing on the big screen. Some are little details--ludicrously-swinging sheets on a rooftop--while others are extravagant musical numbers featuring his collection of "freaks" and trapeze artists. There are unrestrained splashes of color, ingenious uses of light and camera movements, some really cool mid-song transitions from space to space or time to time, and some creative choreography. There's a grand opening, one that features stomping and dizzying camera swirls. My favorite number might have been a scene in a tavern where Barnum is trying to persuade that kid from High School Musical to work with him. Most viewers would likely keep their eyes on the two stars, but I was more intrigued with the movements of the bartender in that one.

There weren't many visual flaws with The Greatest Showman other than some weird CGI animals--looking at you, lions--and some other weirdness that I'll mention below.

A musical is probably only as strong as its songs, and unfortunately, I didn't like them very much. I liked the message behind a lot of the songs, but the songs themselves sounded a little too much like poppy Disneyfied tripe instead of anything that could have lasting appeal. They're performed well enough. I suppose. Of course, I watched La La Land and thought the singing in that was good and have been told about how wrong I was, so what do I know? After the first three or four songs, I feared that all of the songs would pretty much sound the same. As the credits rolled, I couldn't decide whether this had multiple songs in it or just one single song stretched into 105 minutes. And as I type this a few days later, I can't really remember any of the songs. That's probably not a good thing.

Part of the appeal for me was the same appeal for Americans visiting Barnum's museum in the middle of the 19th Century--to see me some freaks! There's a bearded lady, unfortunately not played by an actual bearded lady, and Keala Settle has a couple knock-out performance moments. There's a fake tall guy, a fake dog boy, and a bunch of others who all kind of blend together--a little like the songs--into one giant gelatinous character called the Freaks. They're not developed and never seem real, not much more important than those CGI lions. I know they're not the story here--after all, they didn't get their nickname in the title of the film--but it still seems like they should have felt a little more important to the story than they did.

Of course, one thing that drew me to the theater was that I knew there'd be a little person in this. And there is--4'2" Sam Humphrey, a little guy with a surprising voice. He's good as General Tom Thumb except for a couple things. First, they kept him out of the shot for many of the big song and dance numbers. Additionally, there were some times when I believe they CGI'd the little guy. Shots of Thumb on horses never looked real, and there were some other times I could have sworn they gave him CGI legs or something. It was a little odd.

There are also some storytelling concerns. This doesn't paint a picture of a P.T. Barnum with no flaws at all. Jackman's Barnum is very human. You root for him early on, get really disappointed in him as he makes some questionable decisions, and then like to see him happy at the end of the movie. The problem is that his Barnum doesn't feel very historically accurate. This movie sort of paints him with colors that are a bit too heroic, shallowly heroic. The movie as a whole starts to feel as shallow as its characterization by the second half when the conflicts really start rolling in. Once that happens, it sort of feels like highlights and lowlights of Barnum's life that all happen in a period of a couple weeks. It's too rapid, and it's too superficial, even for a Hollywood musical.

Jackman does a fine job. He's his typically likable self. He knows what to do with a top hat and a cane, and that seems to be about 60% of the character in this. The ubiquitous Michelle Williams plays his wife. She's fine, and so is Zac Efron. I imagine they do their own singing and dancing in this, unless they're given CGI-legs like I know they gave Sam Humphrey at times. Rebecca Ferguson, who plays the greatest singer in the world Jenny Lind, actually doesn't do her own singing in this. That just doesn't sit right with me.

The spectacle of this makes it worth seeing on the big screen, but the movie's irritants really keep it from being any sort of contemporary classic musical.