Entertaining, extravagant, glittering song and dance with a bit less emotion and drama

Rating: 8/10 (28 January 2019)

Unlike Hugh Jackman's mostly live musical Oscar-nominated performance in Tom Hooper's Best Oscar Movie "Les Miserable" (2012), The Great Showman is recorded and lipped sync'd which gives the movie's gorgeous, powerful songs, unfortunately, a sort of artificial quality reminiscent of the older, traditional grand musicals of the sixties My Fair Lady (1964), Mary Poppins (1964), and The Sound of Music (1965). There are even elements of a few scenes that have more in common with a lavish version of episodes from the television musical series Glee (2009-2015) and echoes of musical MTV videos. Nevertheless, The Greatest Showman is entertaining, extravagant with extended bursts of energetic, glittering explosive song and dance routines such as the Oscar-nominated song "This is Me." The themes of love, greed, betrayal, discrimination are both timely and well presented, though not quite as emotively and dramatically riveting as Les Miserable, Moulin Rouge (2001), or another Best Picture Oscar winner Chicago (2003).