The Perfectly Adequate Showman

Rating: 6/10 (18 October 2018)

The Greatest Showman, despite being a huge hit, is not anything great. It's just perfectly adequate. I mean, there's definitely some really cool things about it, it's very energetic, but other than that, it's just... adequate!
What's the story? Inspired by the imagination of P. T. Barnum, The Greatest Showman is an original musical that celebrates the birth of show business & tells of a visionary who rose from nothing to create a spectacle that became a worldwide sensation.
Now, don't get me wrong, I LOVE Hugh Jackman. He's very good at playing the Wolverine in the X-Men movies, and he's also very good in The Fountain. In this film, however, you can definitely tell he's giving it his all, but his performance isn't quite as good as what he had to offer from the other films he was in. He seems to show not much emotion in certain scenes, often affecting his fired up nature and ambitious personality. The rest of the acting is pretty good, especially when it's time for them to sing. The musical numbers in this film are FANTASTIC! Well, most of them. Tightrope wasn't really that good and they overplayed A Million Dreams by a million. Fortunately, the rest of the songs, especially Rewrite the Stars, This is Me, and The Greatest Show are very good songs filled with energy, and are also a lot of fun to watch. The choreography is very well done, even if it can get a bit silly sometimes, and make the musical numbers both a spectacle for the eyes and the ears. However, not everything is so good about the film. For instance, the movie is extremely historically inaccurate, an example being P.T. Barnum's character is more brighthearted despite not being that kind of person in real life, there's all of these unnecessary matches that didn't happen in real life, and it's played to be more of a fantasy than a historical film. Which isn't that bad, I mean, it's worked in a lot of Disney films, but in a live-action retelling of a famous showman, it doesn't work here, making the writing feel rough, inconsistent, and even terrible at times. Another thing I'd like to point out is that the characters themselves aren't very interesting nor compelling, and I feel like their sole purpose is to create unnecessary subplots that don't go anywhere in the story.
In conclusion, The Greatest Showman has got some good things, as well as having some bad things, and in the end, it's nothing short of adequate. It makes a good family film, but that's about it. If you REALLY wanna see a movie about the story of P.T. Barnum's career taken into a more sugar-coated Disney-esque fashion, then go all in for it. But for those looking for a top-notch musical film that also serves as a historical film, no offense but this DEFINITELY isn't for you. Watch it once, maybe again, and that's all you need with this film. Not exactly the best movie to see, but it's not the absolute WORST film ever. Critics hated it, audiences loved it, I'm... sort of in the middle. What can I say but, P.T. Barnum has never felt this average before.