Ambitious intentions fall short

Rating: 4/10 (9 September 2018)

The movie starts out with good energy, which drew me in. This is not really a movie about Barnum, but a musical based (very loosely) on Barnum's life. Accepting that, what can we hope for? The best musical theater will give you the pleasures of music, choreography, and production design. Exceptional musicals like "Hamilton" and "My Fair Lady" will incorporate great storytelling. Unfortunately, "The Greatest Showman" falls short. The production design is truly wonderful, and the choreography is okay up to a point. The songs, however, are pretty generic. Not a single memorable melody. They only serve the purpose to push the story along. And alas, the storytelling devolves into soapy fiction. There is an underlying theme, represented by Barnum's crew of freaks, of diversity and opposition to racism. Admirable, but weakly executed. Hugh Jackman does a great job of carrying this movie, but he is ultimately crushed by its burden of glossy shallowness.