Never Enough

Rating: 6/10 (3 January 2018)

Same lyricists as La La Land (one of my favorite films of all time)? Hugh Jackman going back to his musical roots? A musical surrounding around a circus with plenty of bombastic visuals and acts? Count me in. My interest in The Greatest Showman kept growing with every trailer and TV spot I saw. The final product is a crowd pleasing but ultimately disappointingly bland and cheesy musical loosely based on the infamous P.T. Barnum.
Let me start off by talking about the things I liked. The music is fantastic and nothing short of inspirational and surprisingly moving. Everything from the opening number which sees Barnum as a young boy imagining a "Greatest Show", to the jaw-dropping ballad "Never Enough", to the likely Oscar winner "This is Me", and to my favorite track "A Million Dreams". The music is undeniably catchy and exactly what a movie like this needs. In fact, I could have used the film to have more numbers and be closer to a traditional all-sung musical rather than a musical number every scenes. So even though I didn't care for the rest of the film, the numbers are worth the price of admission alone.
My main problem with the film, which seems to be a lot of people's issue, is that every single problem that comes up gets solved within minutes. This film is all about struggle and coming from nothing to achieve your dreams. A universal and worthy theme in any type of movie, but it only works if you can experience the struggle along with the triumph. Unfortunately, the story is muddied with plenty of character struggles that create obstacles for the protagonists, but are merely brushed aside a few minutes later with a quick scene.
It's also worth noting just how cheesy this film is. I don't like using that term loosely, especially since I usually appreciate "good cheesiness in films". Heck there's plenty of musicals I've seen that have a charming cheese to them. But when a film has inconsequential struggles and contrived plot points, it's hard to get passed moments of pure unnecessary cheese. The film has grown on me a little bit since I saw it a few days back, with the soundtrack being the overwhelming reason for me rating this is as a positive review. If I could watch only the musical numbers and skip past every other scene, I think I would buy it on blu-ray.
6.0/10