Easy on the eye and the brain

Rating: 5/10 (22 March 2018)

I don't know what the critics are saying, but I know why so many people disagree with them. It is surely a pretty production with great attention to detail, and if you liked High School Musical 3, you're going to love this. In order to like this movie, you have to go in with a certain mindset because this movie doesn't aspire to be anything more than light-hearted entertainment. It instantly made me think of 'Sing', the animated feature with animals singing in a musical, and that one was way above this in terms of music and storyline. Here, the plot is as straight as a piece of stick, there is zero actual drama and character development of any sort. The only thing that happens is that P.T. Barnum loses his job and buys a museum, that's all the story summarized for you (without any spoilers).
I enjoyed the music but yes, it's very pop and silly and for kids. Dancing is unoriginal and repetitive. And if you want to see how NOT to introduce the main characters' life stories in a movie, watch the first five minutes of this thing. Basically, it's a fast-forward version sung by the main character as a child - and the screenwriter didn't think you need more. Actually, the whole movie is like that - there is hardly anything to it, it's just a collection of beautiful images but there's nothing to make you care for the characters. All dramas are resolved with an imaginary flick of the fingers - one moment there's no drama, flick your fingers and you have a potentially dramatic situation, then flick them again and the problem is gone, and because the characters sing their problems away, you hardly notice anything happened anyway. What's the point of this? Hell, I have no idea.
I didn't expect this to be some seriously ambitious musical, but from the start I was wondering, why a musical at all? I would've loved to see the story of P.T. Barnum as a proper movie with a plot. With all the money that went into it, it could've been something truly spectacular. As it is now, we don't get to see who P.T. Barmum was, and what he did, all we see is a bunch of weird people singing and dancing, and even that is an exaggeration because most of those people are just kind of filling in, they have no actual place in the storyline, they're just dressed funny but other than that they have no reason to be in P.T. Barnum's circus. If P.T. Barnum's show looked anything like what they show here, nobody would go to see it.
Why did they use Barnum at all? Why not simply do a movie about SOME showman and his band of singing dancers? It actually doesn't matter that those people are freaks because that bit isn't explored at all. In the 21st century you'd imagine that this would be the perfect opportunity to squeeze in every controversial topic if you have a fat bearded woman here and an interracial couple, and a few other misfits. And yet, a circus that bases its feeling of family on the fact that they're all freaks, surprisingly avoids any real treatment of those various issues.There was more social commentary in 'Three billboards' - and that one wasn't impressive either.
Honestly, the worst thing about this movie is that they involved the actual greatest showman and didn't tell his story AT ALL. The only thing in common he has with the main character is the name and his circus. I didn't expect a historically accurate movie detailing all the turns of the man's life but come on, at least if you're setting the whole thing in the times when he lived, then show what life was like then? The British queen that he meets is probably the single thing that tells you that oh, this is the 19th century.
And what's with the computer-generated elephants twice the size of the actual animal in real life? Seriously, they couldn't get a live elephant to walk a few steps on the set?
This movie is best described, in my opinion, as rainbow cotton candy - it is that colorful and sweet, and it has just as much depth in any way whatsoever.
I would've given it fewer stars but it does have beautiful sets, the costumes are amazing, the acting is good, and you'll probably feel a little bit happier after watching this.