The Greatest Showman Reviews

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MOVIE REVIEW: Just How Great IS “The Greatest Showman?”


I had several snarky thoughts when I first saw the trailer for The Greatest Showman.
Things like:
-I think I preferred this movie when it was called Moulin Rouge.
-Isn’t Hugh Jackman a little old to be playing Michelle Williams’ husband?
-Really??? Another slow-motion shot of a hot-chick dangling from the ceiling???


You get the point.


See, I have to sit through a ton of movies and I’m afraid that, after a while, many of them start to look the same.
I even warned my daughters to “keep your expectations low” when we sat down to watch The Greatest Showman, and then prepared myself to be sufficiently underwhelmed.


Man…was I wrong.


The Greatest Showman is inspired by the life of circus creator and father of modern show-biz, P.T. Barnum (played by an unstoppable Hugh Jackman). Michelle Williams is his supportive wife Charity, Zac Efron is his partner Phillip Carlyle, and Zendaya is the trapeze-artist Carlyle scandalously falls for. Those two have terrific chemistry, but it’s hard to beat the electricity generated when Efron and Hugh Jackman share the screen. One of the best scenes in the whole picture is when Barnum talks Carlyle into joining the circus, and they try to out-dance each other. I just might have been stomping my feet along with them.


This is the first time out for director Michael Gracey, but he made the spot-on decision to turn The Greatest Showman into a modern-musical, opting for pop-songs over tunes from the 1800’s. He also had the forethought to hire songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, long before they won a Tony for Dear Evan Hansen and then a Golden Globe AND an Oscar for La La Land. Pasek and Paul crafted eleven original songs for The Greatest Showman, each more emotional than the last. Broadway star Keala Settle almost runs away with the whole movie when her Bearded Lady sings This is Me. Honestly, I cried so hard through that one, I was struggling to catch my breath.


The Greatest Showman might feel a little predictable and twee at times, but the emotions are so raw and authentic, you probably won’t care. It’s also rated PG, so it’s one you can share with kids of any age. My own daughters (ages 10 and 13) see almost as many movies as I do, and are strangely even more cynical. Even THEY were pulled into the music and magic of The Greatest Showman. It’s the perfect film to enjoy with your whole family over the holidays, and that’s coming from someone who hates musicals.

No, I wasn’t looking forward to The Greatest Showman and I was fully prepared for disappointment…but sometimes it feels GOOD to be WRONG. (A+)

Updated On: 12/20/17 at 08:34 PM

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ARNOLD WAYNE JONES | Executive Editor
jones@dallasvoice.com

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If you want the thrill of a new film discovery akin to previous Star Wars episodes, you couldn’t do much better than The Greatest Showman. I confess going into this film without many expectations: A biopic about P.T. Barnum (Hugh Jackman), who arguably invented not only the modern circus, but the entire idea that any publicity is good publicity, and that if you give the people what they want — to be amazed — the truth can always take a backseat. I imagined how it would play out, with rags-to-riches predictability, megalomania that torpedoes his personal relationships, confidence when the naysayers shot him down on his way to eventually immortality.

That’s exactly how the plot shakes out.


But what surprised, delighted and thrilled me was the way it was told. This is a newfangled musical of the highest order — colorful, exciting, chock full of terrific songs and eye-popping choreography. I just loved it.

It’s not often you feel the desire to get all gooey-lovey-dovey about a movie, but if you’re going to, a musical is the way to go. The songs are by Justin Paul and Benj Pasek, the duo responsible for the lyrics to last year’s La La Land as well as the Tony darling Dear Evan Hansen, and they are infectiously fun as well as emotionally rich and plot-driving. You leave the moviehouse with a whistle in your head and a skip in your step.


A lot of that falls in the lap of Hugh Jackman. Jackman is probably the only legit movie star today who is perfectly at ease in the flamboyantly open-hearted genre of song-and-dance musicals. He’s got the chops: A Tony for The Boy from Oz, a Oscar nomination for Les Miz; his big break was on the London stage playing Curly in Oklahoma. He’s talented and guileless, and he doesn’t so much show off as embody the musicality of his character. From the first shot — his silhouette in a dramatic pose, with the score grabbing you with its first notes — the director, newcomer Michael Gracey, projects his aesthetic: Let the showmanship speak for itself. Unlike La La Land — a kind of post-modern take on the nouvelle vague movie musicals of Jacques Demy, populated with capable actors who sing and dance, but who aren’t really “singer-dancers” — The Greatest Showman luxuriates in its widescreen showboating and frenetic editing. It’s much closer in tone to Moulin Rouge, or even the winsome, animated musical Sing!, than La La Land or Chicago. It wears its heart on its sleeve.


But for all the credit rightly heaped on Jackman, the rest of the cast sells this show. The “freaks” in Barnum’s show are mostly in the background, but impressively developed as individuals, especially the stupendous Keala Settle as the Bearded Lady. Michelle Williams not only sings like an angel, she transitions flawlessly from happily poor helpmate to patrician, sad rich wife. Zac Efron, who has his own legitimacy with musicals, plays Barnum’s business partner; theirs number set in a bar, where Jackman convinces Efron to join him in this fantastical enterprise, is a brilliantly staged and edited sequence. (One of the film’s editors, Tom Cross, also did La La Land.) And Rebecca Ferguson as the “Swedish nightingale” Jenny Lind wows you in her introductory number.

The song she sings, of course, isn’t from the canon of 19th century coloratura, but a contemporary, elaborately orchestrated number — the kind Celine Dion might open a show with today, not an opera star from 150 years ago. But that fits in with the Baz Luhrmann-esque ethos of the movie. It speaks in modern idioms to adequately convey the experience of an age long past.

Indeed, the legacy of Barnum is at its lowest ebb ever; the show he created, which became the Ringling Bros./Barnum & Bailey Circus, shuttered its tent forever earlier this year, its treatment of animals seen as incompatible with 21st century progressivity. But The Greatest Showman doesn’t occupy itself with such social hot potatoes. Instead, it concentrates on the celebratory nature of humankind’s diversity, the groundbreaking development of entertainment. Maybe I’m a sucker, but that enchants me.

The Last Jedi now playing in wide release. The Greatest Showman opens wide on Dec. 20.

Updated On: 12/20/17 at 08:35 PM

http://www.islingtongazette.co.uk/entertainment/cinema-film/the-greatest-showman-review-hugh-jackman-s-passion-project-where-every-song-s-a-showstopper-1-5324907

http://www.stardem.com/blogs/moviereview/review-the-greatest-showman/article_c0c65d22-334c-5bd1-bc95-7ea907420feb.html

Just curious if it's really necessary to post blogs as "reviews."

http://www.thefilmfile.com/reviews/g/17_greatestshowman.htm

All I know from this movie (why isn't this on the off topic board anyway?) is the extended and somehow enervating trailer, which resembles nothing so much as the usual Luhrmannesque variety of lunch meat thrown at a wall. And it's not even a Luhrmann project.

40% on Rotten Tomatoes. There's a reason why reviews were embargoed until opening day.

newintown said: "All I know from this movie (why isn't this on the off topic board anyway?) is the extended and somehow enervating trailer, which resembles nothing so much as the usual Luhrmannesquevariety of lunch meat thrown at a wall. And it's not even a Luhrmann project."

And I'm not a fan of Baz Luhrmann's at all. Every single film I've seen of his has been all style, but no substance.

Pasek and Paul have a chance to write songs for an original movie musical

and they churn out a whole bunch of derivative pop anthems.

Harmonically and accompaniment wise and lyrically this is Diet Pasek and Paul. All of their Jason Robert Brown and Sondheim influence traded for Katy Perry or Billboard charting drek.

Bleah.

"It’s amazing how they can critique everything imaginable but Iron Man, Superman, Batman etc keeps getting cranked out of Holkywood [sic] for $$$."

Perhaps because those are the films that the masses shell out millions of dollars to see?

rattleNwoolypenguin said: "Pasek and Paul have a chance to write songs for an original movie musical

and they churn out a whole bunch of derivative pop anthems.

Harmonically and accompaniment wise and lyrically this is Diet Pasek and Paul. All of their Jason Robert Brown and Sondheim influence traded for Katy Perry or Billboard charting drek.

Bleah."

You just described every song on the DEH recording.



That said, I will still go see this. It looks like light entertainment and fun.