If you like Musicals; give this film a shot.

Rating: 7/10 (10 January 2018)

The Greatest Showman, directed by Michael Gracey and written by Bill Condon and Jenny Bicks and is about P.T. Barnum, the founder of Barnum and Bailey's Circus, and his upbringing of the circus into American culture and stars the extremely talented Hugh Jackman as P.T. Barnum, Zac Efron as his assistant named Phillip Carlyle and Zendaya as Anne Wheeler with Michelle Williams as Charity Barnum. Before I get into my review, was I greatly impressed by this film; no. It was mediocre at best. But, I gave it a seven so I do think this move is average so here's why I think that. The first thing I look at is Cinematography. This movie looks undoubtedly beautiful. The shots where there is close ups on certain characters shows their emotion very well. Also, when there are characters who are sitting or standing in a location that is vital to the story or the story's progression it shows pretty much the whole area with the actor/actress which shows how miniscule they are compared to the scenery. All in all, it's a beautifully shots film with virtually no errors, as compared to the cinematography. However, the film's writing/dialogue/story in opinion was extremely poor. I did not care for the film's dialogue as I found it to be very forced and even awkward at times. Especially one scene where young Barnum and Charity are on the beach and as they're talking, you get a sense of that the child actors, Ellis Ruban and Skylar Dunn, aren't trying very well to make their scenes authentic. I also feel as if they romanticized the story of P.T. Barnum. They made being a poor teenager living on the street as a glorious entity. This was also a one hour and forty five minute long film, which I believed to be way to short. This film should've at least have been two hours and fifteen minutes. There was much material that the writers could've elaborated on and made his childhood more in depth and detail that the writers didn't care to do. The acting in this film was good but had some issues with it, that's why I only took off one point for the acting. First, were the poor aspects of the acting. Again, referring back to my statement on the child actors, they feel short in here too. I do believe that these child actors are good, but they were not given the substantial source material from the writers. However, Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Zendaya, and Michelle Williams all give fantastic performances! Especially Hugh Jackman as P.T. Barnum in which he completely steals the show. As well as his incredible acting, he is also a surprisingly really good singer. With that statement, let me now talk about the music. It was phenomenal; every minute of it. I prefer La La Land's music over this but that music was considered to be a musical fan's dream, this definitely follows that route. The opening song is absolutely my favorite from the film; it honestly gave me some chills. I would consider buying the whole album on your phone I think it's that good. My last category to go over is the design of the film; this means the sets/locations throughout the film and the costumes. First off, the costumes are and look extraordinary especially Barnum's Ringmaster outfit. These outfits for all of the characters look so real. The dresses that the women in the film wear especially those who the higher class look absolutely amazing and the top hatted suits that the men wear look so classy. Now to my final point; the sets and locations where the film was shot. The sets look so colorful and gorgeous. The sets that contain the circus scenes are full of color and excitement! In conclusion, I do recommend that you go see this film and decide for yourself if you think this movie is good.