i can't bring myself to root for p. t. barnum i'm sorry

Rating: 3/10 (8 June 2018)

I went into this one expecting something special. Hugh Jackman sure does like his musicals. And I had heard Zendaya was in it, so how bad could it possibly be?
Still pretty bad.
I'm giving this 3 stars, not less, because:

There's some pretty great choreography in this one, I have to admit.

Zendaya and Zac Efron are in this, and their song is particularly well done. That trapeze choreography stuff? That was awesome.

Hugh Jackman gives it his all, you've got to give him that. He might be pulling that weird half-grin face the entire time, but you can tell how much he's loving being in another musical.

I'm certainly not giving this more than 3 stars, because:

It's an entire movie romanticizing the life and legacy of P T Barnum, who is in absolutely no way someone who I can root for. Mr. Barnum's first 'freak' that he put on display was a 70 year old black slave. He first began putting her on display when he was in his early 20s. He claimed she was the 200-year-old nanny of George Washington. When she died a few years later, he charged tickets for people to watch her autopsy. Wonder why the movie didn't cover this aspect of his life?

The songs are all vastly different, and the lyrics are vague enough that they seem to have been designed so that they can be blasted on the radio and soundtracks will be bought.

Jenny Lind. All of Jenny Lind. Once again, Ms. Lind was a real person - a Swedish opera singer who donated a small fortune to charity. The movie has portrayed her as wanting nothing but to seduce P T Barnum and ruin his marriage. When he turns her down, she attempts to destroy his life, and cancels the tour. What really happened is that Barnum's marketing strategies began to make her uncomfortable, so she stepped down from going on tour with him. As if this portrayal wasn't inaccurate enough, her one song in the film is some kind of Adele-style pop ballad. Not exactly what I was expecting from an 'opera singer'.

Zac Efron and Zendaya's characters are in love, and the movie attempts to portray an interracial relationship in a time where black people in London were still being kept as slaves, their lives endangered. P T Barnum even hires Zendaya and her brother, telling them that he wants the crowds to be outraged to see black trapeze artists performing. This attempt at an interracial relationship portrayal could have been good, but they boil it down to Zendaya going "No,,, we can't be together,,," and Zac Efron going "Why are you so afraid of what people think?" This is after he is ashamed to be seen with her in public earlier in the film, too. Honestly, this was the laziest sub-storyline I've ever seen. Zac and Zendaya are gorgeous but this was honestly one of the aspects of the film that irritated me the most.

Some real bad child actor singing. Really, really bad singing.

That scene where Hugh Jackman rides a CGI elephant through the streets of London to meet his family, then dismounts the elephant and runs off, leaving it randomly standing in the middle of the city. P T Barnum is a dick to elephants.

If they had just made a musical about a man who starts a circus, this could have been alright. Trying to root this in history then massively failing to accurately portray Barnum and Jenny Lind just made this even more of a flop.