Listen to the critics, they know what they're talking about

Rating: 4/10 (1 January 2018)

First off, I feel I need to preface this by saying I am not some heartless jockish type who violently hates musicals or spectacular movies. I am a great lover of musicals because of their potential to strengthen the emotional beats of any story through the majesty of song. Moments like "City of Stars" in La La Land, which beautifully depicts Seb's resignation in falling for Mia. Or Les Miserables "I dreamed a dreamed" that could melt even the coldest heart due to the plight of the completely defeated Flautine. My all time favorite musical, Fiddler on the Roof, is jammed packed with these moments, right from the start and the incredibly delicate yet spectacular world building opening of "TRADITION!" These musical moments were God damn earned by their story's plots and that is what is surely missing from The Great Showman.
I honestly do not think it is possible to tell the back story of your protagonist as quickly as this movie does! It is a troubling trend nowadays to gloss over the set up of a films hero's life as quickly as possible just to get to the explosive dramatic action of the story, but telling us who and why we should care about a character is absolutely vital for the problems faced by that character to fully hit home. From the little I know about P.T Barnum he seemed to be this incredibly complex and interesting historical figure, so why not explore this in-depth? Do the film makers expect me to do my own deep dive into research into the man, inspired by their superficial exploration of him? I'm not out here looking to get homework after watching a movie, YOU DO THE HOMEWORK! And give me an authentic recollection of his life. It really is not hard and there will still be time for the musical numbers.
And this is not only true for Barnum but so so many characters in this movie. You know you are lying to yourself if you did not feel like you wanted to know more about Zendaya's character? Where in the universe did this this incredible trapezes brother-sister duo come from? Indeed all the performers in Barnums circus were such wasted opportunities to help drive the message of the film home. At the very least they could have homed in on one, the bearded lady perhaps? I know those among you who love this movie are going to say that that would have slowed the "hip and happening" spectacle of this movie down but for the love of God its not hard work to script in same pieces of dialogue (or I don't know even possibly A SONG perhaps?) That gave us a feel for who these damn people are. But no f-that right? Who cares who they were, I mean its pretty obvious the type of life a bearded lady had, right?
Now, you reading this may perceive me of being completely full of shit and some sort of film student, and you would be right! I am still very early on in my studies but the little I have learnt on crafting a story has taught me that every story needs to have an underlying meaning, a lesson the filmmaker wants to teach their audience and indeed themselves through a journey in the lives of characters. As my lecturer says to us, "Tell the audience that two plus two equals eleven, then prove it to them!" Writing stories that can inspire change in the world takes a ton of introspection, research, and diving deep into your own understanding and consciousness of a topic and then presenting your findings to the world and this is what annoys me the most with The Great Showman! If you were to take out the songs in this film it would honestly be the filmic equivalent of reading a Wikipedia page and that is such a shame because of the possibilities presented by the topic it was trying to explore. They could have explored race, the entertainment industry, exploitation, ambition, and presented us with an honest and educational finding on these universal issues, but instead they gave us a series of beautiful music videos.
I am not making my point well here, but if you want to have a look at what true artistry in storytelling can lead to, check out this "Lessons from a screenplay" video about "UP": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulm7bcB2xvY
But I am done complaining about this movie and I didn't mean to rain on all your parades but as a hopefully future filmmaker is worries me that such an artificial story-line can fly under the radar so easily by just adding heaps and heaps of spectacle. If you truly are a lover of films, you should demand with all you have that the men and woman who are charges to creating the scripts are forced to be as accountable as the incredible work done by cinematographers, sound designers, editors, colourists, visual effects artists, production and costume designers, music composers, and ofcourse the actors; all of whom completely and utterly killed the game in The Great Showman, it just a shame the writer put in such a shitty effort.
And go easy on the critics, they love movies just as much as you do...