Good, not great

Rating: 7/10 (6 January 2018)

20th Century Fox's The Greatest Showman is a family oriented musical based on P.T. Barnum. I have somewhat mixed feelings after seeing this tonight. I'll first go over the positive aspects of the film, then I'll cover the negative ones.
First of all, I'll say that the singing is very good, the musical numbers don't disappoint for the vast majority of the time. There were moments in a couple of the big musical numbers where I felt they got a bit Disney Channel, which is not how a big screen musical should feel. It's kind of strange though because some songs, like we can rewrite the stars between Zac Efron and Zendaya, or any time Rebecca Ferguson was singing, those did not have that feel to it at all and I really enjoyed it. I thought the actors were well cast and the acting was fine, I won't say that the performances were amazing because I didn't feel that they were. I have seen better acting from all the stars in previous films they've done, but that's not to say that their were bad, they were just fine. The visuals is another thumbs up. Visually, this movie was great, if we were only talking about visuals, then this would be a ten.
Now for the negatives. What I mentioned previously when talking about the singing is one of the negatives, the moments where it felt too kiddie and not like a big screen musical. Another negative is that it's just not up to par with other great musicals in cinema history. I felt that it was too safe in places, like it was content at just being good and not great. It didn't take that extra step.
I left the theater feeling a sense of "that was a decent musical, but I have definitely seen better". I suggest this mildly, if you're looking for a family oriented musical then I's definetly say this one, but there are much better musical films out there and I think this one could have been better than just good. 7/10 for The Greatest Showman.