I was in the tank for “The Greatest Showman” from the first trailer, so take my brief remarks here with a grain of salt.
I absolutely loved it. It’s a fairly straightforward biopic, but the performances and the costumes and the sets and the choreography and the music. Holy shit the music.
This is breathless, beautiful, unapologetic spectacle and all the better for it. It’s themes about accepting yourself and others is powerful as well, but almost beside the point in the face of so much showmanship.
It isn’t revolutionary, but it doesn’t need to be.
The shopworn plot and soft pedaling of some of PT Barnum’s rough edges keeps it from being one of the best movies of the year, but it is absolutely one of the most fun and emotionally satisfying.