Pretty but boring

Rating: 2/10 (19 April 2017)

I came into this with low expectations. It has managed to surprise me with how utterly boring and awkward it is.
It is beautiful. The shots, the costumes the works. That is one thing he has going for him, and I now completely understand a big reason why I found Cloverfield lane so amusing to watch even though its over the top and weird. He truly has moments of brilliance in setting up a scene.
But as a story and a musical its incredibly boring. The songs are completely forgettable for the most part, the singing is using soft, falsetto voices, making it often difficult to read any emotion from them and in some cases even difficult to understand at some points. The dancing of our stars seems like they are just trying to get the steps right. There's no ease of movement that musical lovers are expecting and are used to. When you take into account that the choreographies themselves are not that grand or impressive, it makes it even more obvious that our stars had no time to think about the emotion of the scene, but were focused on getting the steps right. There's no lightness to it when you compare it to classical Gene Kelly movies for example. It makes it very boring to watch, because there is no chemistry. I found myself more interested in the costumes and the back rounds than the characters.
Its not funny, but its not serious enough either. And Emma Stone is amazing for funny, for me at least. This one didn't get a laugh out of me. It didn't get me invested in the characters either. I think its partly because for the longest time the movie makes us think the characters themselves don't really care, so why should we? And this kind of superficiality would work if the music numbers were more exciting and fun.
There is a reason Audrey H. was dubbed in certain movies, they understood that they needed a strong, clear, big voice.
This movies choices baffle me.
The only reason I can honestly think of this being praised this much is people going along with ''professional critic'' and the movie attracting an audience that hasn't seen musicals before with Emma and Gosling. I could understand how someone who hasn't seen any of the amazing musicals out there, would be in love with this movie. And if this movie inspires them to look those up and see what they are missing, i'll be satisfied.