Much style, little substance

Rating: 4/10 (16 May 2019)

The story of PT Barnum, famous for founding Barnum and Bailey Circus and revolutionising entertainment.
Much style, little substance. Some of this is to be expected, as you can't have a movie on a showman extraordinaire and one of the most significant figures in entertainment history without a large amount of pizzazz.
However, the movie doesn't really give us much of Barnum's history or motivations. The main focus seems to be on cramming as many song and dance numbers into the movie as possible, at the expense of any plot. For every minute of plot or character development you have four minutes of musical numbers.
To crown it all, the music is poor and irritating. Every musical number sounds like something from a made-for-kids animated Disney movie, rather than a biopic. The movie is set in the mid-1800s yet we have ultra-contemporary numbers. It is quite jarring and negates any semblance of historical accuracy, credibility or substance.