A great disappointment and a dreadful mess despite with some silver linings.

Rating: 2/10 (12 April 2018)

As much as The Greatest Showman delivers greater performances particularly from most of the cast with the likes of Hugh Jackman (who never disappoints), Zac Efron, Keala Seattle, Zendaya, Michelle Williams and others and even the music and soundtrack that was looks supposedly to be "superb", this movie suffers a greater let-down and wrecking mess in which greater performances from the cast couldn't redeem it.
First of all, the direction is really off the rails given the fact that the film's director Michael Gracey whose track record was based on directing music videos was unable to deliver a solid direction that could have made the film more livid and intriguing. Second, the writing had its good lines except that it made the film rifled with major historical inaccuracies considering that this film is based on a true story of P.T. Barnum and his circus which its depiction of the story made it mediocre and worse, erroneous given the main character's background being seen with darker and questionable history and even dreadfully ignored the circus' dark past in favor of a fictitious depiction. Worse, this film's plot is convoluted and nonsensical. To add insult to the injury, terrible racist depictions of stereotypes are all over the place.
Third has to do with another questionable performance from Rebecca Ferguson whose portrayal of Jenny Lind whose character was considered as the "Swedish Nightingale" suffers a glaring issue particularly the singing voice despite the fact that the singing voice was being dubbed by Loren Allred and Ferguson didn't commit herself to singing on her own and while her acting is still appreciated, the singing voice made it another additional problem for the film's historical inaccuracies.
Fourth, despite the film's good costume and production design and its good cinematography and choreography; the film really came out as style over substance, favoring performances as well artful and artistic merits over story, depth and character development, making this film a flashy and disappointing mess. Even the editing and pacing made it more dreadfully convoluted, confusing and dull.
Lastly, what's so disappointing and perplexing is that the Pasek & Paul duo made a disappointing contribution to this film following their great track record for La La Land is that much of these songs they've written despite these songs were entertaining, they come off as bland, fake, and forgettable and worse, very terribly annoying. Even "This is Me" song is also considered as forgettable, overproduced, stupid and idiotic despite the ironic fact that it serves as a anthem for the prejudiced and disabled which is really just seen as laughable. The Greatest Showman is truly dishonorable, disgraceful and terribly a laughing stock to the contribution of the revival of contemporary musical films and really an abominable travesty to the superior La La Land and other great musicals including Moulin Rouge!, Chicago, and Dreamgirls.
With all these problems that's plaguing the film's quality, this film is definitely not recommended to be seen even if anyone loved this film's music and soundtrack but honestly speaking that The Greatest Showman in its soundtrack is considered the worst soundtrack being made in this decade.