The Greatest Showman - Review

This is the ultimate chapter skip movie. What do I mean by that? Well, moments of this film are absolutely breathtaking, others are rather mediocre at best. So my sister saw this movie when it came out and for about a month afterward, I would hear the soundtrack playing from her room. Constantly, I would hear, "You have to see the Greatest Showman!" So on my 9-hour flight from Vancouver to London, one of the films that were available to see was the Greatest Showman. Now I understand why my sister loved the soundtrack so much. It's because these songs are great, but the visuals and the choreography and the spectacle of it all are absolutely wonderful. I was humming the songs for the rest of the flight and even watched a couple of the musical numbers on YouTube. Michael Gracey was able to create some fantastic set pieces. However, the story in my eyes just couldn't live up to the musical numbers. The characters, even P.T. Barnum I thought were kind of stale, the chemistry between actors was serviceable but whenever some serious drama would occur, I thought to myself, "Wait... why should I care again?" The only real relationship I was able to get somewhat invested in was between P.T. Barnum and his wife and kids. Other than that, I really don't have much to say about it. The story kind of dragged at parts, some of the decisions made my characters or even certain actions were head scratchers and overall, it wasn't that interesting. This is a movie of style over substance. Cinematography, Production Design and all the Post-Production are breathtaking... but there isn't much to back it up. It's not a bad movie by any means, but I feel like the most important elements to a movie take a back seat to the visuals and spectacle. That's why I call it the chapter skip movie. Look up the songs on YouTube and you'll get the same experience just without the unnecessary clutter.