Average romance musical

Rating: 5/10 (2 January 2018)

Lots of people have been asking if I've seen 'La La Land', so I thought I had better give it a chance, even though musicals aren't my thing - better late than never, right? I always list the four most prominent actors when I do a review, but I truly struggled to think of anyone else to fill the 3rd & 4th slots, since this film has two stars, and at least one of them is on screen the entire time, with little time dedicated to anything/anyone else. Maybe not a bad thing, but it does mean the film gets a bit monotonous.
Sebastian (Gosling) and Mia (Stone) are easy to watch and are good in this, but I don't think either of them is a particularly good singer or dancer. My main problem with musicals is: why? If a scene's not interesting enough to sustain momentum without having song and dance, then cut it! At least in animated films, they seem to find ways to weave songs in organically - and they're catchy. Here, I didn't find any of the songs very catchy or interesting - most are kind of mopey. Otherwise, it's all quite predictable - they fall in love, they chase their dreams, the end.
The ending is semi-interesting, but every time I started to get pulled into the film when there's a stretch with no singing, it suddenly appears again - always out of context - and pushes me back out. It's definitely not a bad film, I just felt like nothing really happened - sure, there's some romance and they're good actors, but there's no real story or humour to be found.