The Greatest Showman

So much better than La La Land. Probably the best musical that has been released in the last five years. Every single song in this movie is really good.

The Greatest Showman is about the Barnem circus. Some characters are fictional, such as the character of Zac Effron but others, such as the Character of P.T Barnem are actually real and based on the man who ran the circus. This film is about the appreciation of everyone. Everyone is equal and should be appreciated for who they are. I don't like circus' and I wouldn't say that putting someone who is different in a circus is really appreciating them in todays world but at that time it was the only way to give them a career and I have no problem with that at all.

We all know that Hugh Jackman can sing because if we didn't already know it before Les Miserables then we discovered it from that movie. The good news is that this part was better for him and his solos didn't just focus on his face. We all kind of new that Zac Effron could sing but it has been a long time since his terrible 'High School Musical' days where he didn't even necessarily sing and played on his looks. He was surprisingly good in this movie and the character that he played still had the same feel of 'popular' that he normally takes on and 'dating below class' which is also another characteristic of his characters but this character was different because he did end up taking on the circus and funding it and ditching his money and status to do something good with his life. The love interest was fictional but that was okay.

All the voices were great, except for Michelle Williams because she didn't actually sing which is a HUGE letdown. If you can't sing then don't take on a role in a musical that has to sing! I hate someone else taking the credit for another persons' work and this irritates me especially because I do not know who sang her part. While I am busy complaining about it I might as well mention that her opera singer character does not actually sing any opera in this movie. The song that she sings is good and she acts it like it is opera but it isn't and that is a huge let down. Loads or rich people dressed in evening where going to see Adele? I doubt it. What the character of Jenny Lind actually sung was a pop style song, hence my reference to Adele.

The music is fantastic. The choreography is fantastic and the design of the film has that 'wow' feel to it which is why the movie should win more awards than La La Land but there is still room for improvement in the musical front. The music is going in the write direction and having decent stability to every song is a huge improvement from that dreadful musical released last year but there is still work to be done on the plot and the way in which they film the songs.

I was very happy with this movie. We enjoyed it a lot. Much better than Star Wars.