Solid musical slightly let down by the musical numbers

Rating: 8/10 (30 March 2017)

La La Land clearly wants to evoke classic movie musicals like Singing in the Rain or the Band Wagon, but it's casting is closer to later star- driven musicals like My Fair Lady. The difference is that the former starred people known for their dancing or singing, while the latter cast non-musical stars likely to carry the movie with their star power.
In terms of star power, La La Land does pretty well, with a good performance by Ryan Gosling as a jerky musician and an amazing one by Emma Stone, who is every bit as good as she was in Birdland. The stars have good chemistry as the follow the traditional Holllywood trajectory from sniping to googly eyes.
In My Fair Lady, Rex Harrison didn't try to sing (he just talked through the numbers) and Audrey Hepburn was redubbed, but in La La Land the stars are singing and dancing as best they can, and the movie bows to their weaknesses with songs that aren't difficult to sing and dance numbers that stay pretty simple.
Because of this, there are no great musical numbers. There are some cute ones, with songs that are almost memorable and dance numbers that replace impressive performance with cute ideas, but there is no Astaire dancing on the ceiling, and there is no Minelli telling us that life is a cabaret. The sort of performers whose singing or dancing could power an amazing number - Gene Kelly, Ann Powell, Jennifer Hudson, Donald O'Conner, Tommy Tune - are in short supply nowadays.
The choreographer may also simply have lacked the adventuress spirit. The first, non-star number is fun but non-musical Malcolm X's one musical number was more memorable.
My girlfriend liked this slightly amateur-hour approach, and felt it was unfair to contrast the film with something like Singin' in the Rain, but I disagree, because La La Land really goes out of its way to say, "look, this is just like those old movies with a slightly more complex view of relationships!" I feel like La La Land really does want to have an amazing dance number but knows it doesn't have the stars to pull it off, which may be why the film's most striking set piece, which comes right at the end, isn't a musical number at all even though it references a few.
I liked the movie. It's fun, escapist musical entertainment. But I find the critical raves a little puzzling. It is a good, solid movie, but it pales in comparison with truly great musicals like An America in Paris, Cabaret, Sweet Charity, or West Side Story.