movie review on the greatest showman

The Greatest Showman

“Without promotion, something terrible happens…nothing!” – attributed to Phineas Taylor Barnum

“The Greatest Showman,” directed with verve and panache by Michael Gracey , is an unabashed piece of pure entertainment, punctuated by 11 memorable songs composed by Oscar- and Tony-winning duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul , who composed the songs for “ La La Land ,” as well as the current Broadway hit Dear Evan Hansen . The film is made for the whole family to enjoy, and so it leaves out many of the darker elements (explored in the 1980 Broadway musical Barnum , music by Cy Coleman ). This is a difficult tightrope to walk, but credit is due to Gracey, a perfectly cast Hugh Jackman , and the entire cast, who play this story in the spirit in which it was written (by Jenny Bicks and Bill Condon ). “The Greatest Showman” positions itself as a story celebrating diversity, and the importance of embracing all kinds.

There are those who will see this as a rose-colored-glasses view of what was a pretty exploitive situation. But in a 19th and early 20th century context, the circus and then vaudeville were welcoming places where those who had skills or who were rejected by society could find a home. Barnum put “misfit toys” onstage, saying, in essence, “Aren’t they amazing?” (all while filling his pockets. For more thoughts on P.T. Barnum’s barely acknowledged influence on American culture author Trav S.D.’s 2005 lecture at the Barnum Museum in Bridgeport, CT is a good place to start.) Cary Grant , who had a harsh poor childhood, got his start as a tumbler in a vaudeville troupe. Years later he described his revelatory first visit to the Bristol Hippodrome:

“The Saturday matinee was in full swing when I arrived backstage; and there I suddenly found my inarticulate self in a dazzling land of smiling, jostling people wearing and not wearing all sorts of costumes and doing all sorts of clever things. And that’s when I knew! What other life could there be but that of an actor? They happily traveled and toured. They were classless, cheerful, and carefree. They gaily laughed, lived, and loved.”

That’s what “The Greatest Showman” captures.

The film starts with the title song “The Greatest Show,” a show-stopper with repetitive thumping percussion (reminiscent of Queen’s ferocious “We Will Rock You”). Hugh Jackman—in red impresario’s coat and top hat—takes us on a dazzling tour, with cinematographer Seamus McGarvey keeping the movements fluid, and all the actions connected, plunging you into the center ring. The whole number comes from the brazen heart of showbiz: Make it interesting! Give ’em something to look at! Make sure you reach the cheap seats! Barnum croons seductively, “Just surrender cuz you feel the feeling taking over!” I obeyed without reservation.

During the next number, “A Million Dreams” the young and poor Barnum (Ellis Rubin) befriends a well-bred little girl named Charity Hallett ( Skylar Dunn ), and they dream of creating their own destiny. This is the first time in “The Greatest Showman” where a character stops speaking and starts to sing instead; the segue is gracefully handled, setting up the artificial device early on. If you don’t set up that trope with confidence, it makes it look like you’re embarrassed to be doing a musical. By the end of the song, the little boy has become Hugh Jackman and the little girl has become Michelle Williams , leaping and twirling across the rooftop of their tenement, bed sheets on the line billowing to the beat.

After struggling to establish himself, Barnum launches out on his own, creating a theatre in the heart of New York City. He gathers together people with special talents as well as those with physical abnormalities (a giant, a bearded lady, Siamese twins, a dwarf—who would eventually be known as General Tom Thumb, Barnum’s first “breakout star”). The “audition” sequence is extremely tricky, but the tone is set by Jackman’s inclusive delight at the parade of humanity before him. It’s a moment when ignored people are for the first time really seen .

Lettie Lutz, the “bearded lady,” played by Tony-nominee Keala Settle, with a powerhouse voice, is one of the first to come on board. Settle’s performance—her first major role onscreen—is one of the many keys to why “The Greatest Showman” is so effective. She understands the spirit of the project, and you watch her transformation from cringing shame to fearless Diva. Her anthemic “This Is Me” is one of the emotional centers of the film. Barnum’s business partner is playwright and society boy Phillip Carlyle ( Zac Efron ), with snobby parents who are not only horrified at his “slumming,” but also at his romance with an African-American trapeze artist (Zendaya) who sports a pompadour of cotton-candy pink hair. Their love story, as presented, is tender, pained, and sweet.

Rebecca Ferguson plays Jenny Lind, the “Swedish Nightingale,” whom Barnum took on a whirlwind concert tour through America It was his entryway into “polite” society. Jenny Lind’s power ballad “Never Enough” makes you understand why Barnum, backstage, falls in love with her instantly, throwing his marriage into crisis. Ferguson may be lip-synching to Loren Allred’s breathtaking vocals, but it is her performance that carries.

Ashley Wallen choreographed the numbers and there are many innovative moments, where she uses the outer environment to inform the movements of the characters. In “ The Other Side ,” Barnum convinces a reticent Carlyle to join the circus, and as he sings, the bartender puts down shot glasses, swipes the bar with a cloth, all as accents to the beat. The real standout, however, is “Rewrite the Stars,” the love song between Efron and Zendaya,taking place in the empty circus tent, when she flies on the trapeze far above him, and he tries to climb up the ropes to meet her. Up, down, they both go, sometimes coming together, dangling above the ground, or sweeping in a wide circle together around the periphery of the tent. It is a moment when the film—every element onscreen—merges and transforms into pure emotion. This is what a musical can do like no other artform.

One of the deep pleasures of “The Greatest Showman” is you don’t have to grade the singing and dancing on a curve, as was necessary with “La La Land” (or, further back, to “ Chicago ,” where quick cuts hid Richard Gere’s lack of tap dancing skills.) Hugh Jackman, with his powerful high baritone, got his start in musicals, performing in productions in Melbourne, and then in a hugely acclaimed revival of Oklahoma! in the West End. He won a Tony Award for his performance as Peter Allen in The Boy From Oz and has hosted the Tony Awards three times. He is an old-fashioned triple-threat. Film fans may know him mainly as “Wolverine,” and there’s nothing wrong with that, but once upon a time a song-and-dance man like Hugh Jackman’s could sing and dance his way through mainstream Hollywood. He’s unleashed here.

So, too, is Zac Efron, who also got his start because he could sing and dance in the phenom that was “High School Musical.” His career has morphed into something rather unique, with titles like “Hairspray,” “Neighbors,” and a hilarious small part in this year’s “ The Disaster Artist .” He has something that cannot be manufactured, although many try, and that is old-school movie star charisma. Add to that a beautiful voice, plus dancing skills, plus a surprisingly ironic sense of humor, and he’s got the full package. It’s thrilling to see him in a big splashy musical. He’s very much at home.

Michelle Williams, with anachronistically long blonde hair, has a strong clear voice, and there’s something exhilarating about how she tosses herself into thin air, knowing Jackman will catch her. In what could be a thankless “wet blanket wife” part, Williams adds a spunky sense of adventure, showing us the kind of woman who would say “No” to a ladylike society-wife life, and fling herself into the unknown with her man.

The timing of this release is interesting. On May 21, 2017, Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus folded up its tent for good, after 146 years of uninterrupted operation. Rocked by controversy due to criticisms of exploitation and animal abuse, they retired the elephant acts in 2016, but it was too late. Barnum was dogged by criticisms from the beginning. Many of the “acts” were fakes. Barnum actually didn’t say the quote most associated with him (“There’s a sucker born every minute”) but he might as well have said it and his critics despised him for the assumption about popular entertainment and the regular folk who enjoy it. But in the film, Barnum, with a dazzling smile, explains to a skeptical journalist, “People come to my show for the pleasure of being hoodwinked.”

I was hoodwinked by “The Greatest Showman.” And it was indeed a pleasure. Ringling Brothers may have closed up shop, but Barnum lives on.

Sheila O'Malley

Sheila O’Malley received a BFA in Theatre from the University of Rhode Island and a Master’s in Acting from the Actors Studio MFA Program. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

Zendaya as Anne Wheeler
Michelle Williams as Charity Barnum
Rebecca Ferguson as Jenny Lind
Zac Efron as Phillip Carlyle
Fredric Lehne as Mr. Hallett
Hugh Jackman as P.T. Barnum
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as WD Wheeler
Paul Sparks as James Gordon Bennett
Justin Paul
Bill Condon
Jenny Bicks
Joe Hutshing
Michael Gracey

Cinematography

Seamus McGarvey

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Review: In ‘The Greatest Showman,’ a P.T. Barnum Smaller Than Life

By Jason Zinoman

Dec. 20, 2017

Early in “The Greatest Showman,” P.T. Barnum, played with gung-ho sincerity by Hugh Jackman, says he has long served up hokum, but now wants to do more for his audience: “Just once I’d like to give them something real.”

What fun is that?

Even after the long-running circus bearing his name closed up shop this year, P.T. Barnum remains firmly lodged in the public imagination because of his gift for blurring the line between truth and fiction. When he presented the 161-year-old nurse of George Washington as a star attraction, some of his audience knew she was phony, others did not, and then there were those who did not care and went along for the ride. There’s pleasure in a good fib (spoiler alert: Santa), as well as political advantage. When compared to Barnum last year, Donald Trump responded : “We need P.T. Barnum, a little bit.”

“The Greatest Showman,” a montage sequence that occasionally turns into a movie musical, steers clear of any contemporary resonance and ignores meaty themes. The first-time director Michael Gracey achieves an aggressively synthetic style through kinetic editing and tidy underdog stories, but none of the true joy of pulling a fast one. It’s a standard-issue holiday biopic, one that tells a story about a populist entertainer hungry for highbrow respect, the joys of showbiz and the price of ambition. An amusement park version of P.T. Barnum is fine, as far as that goes, but if you are going to aim for family-friendly fun, you need to get the fun part right.

“Showman” has the ingredients of a splashy good time, since it has the perfect star in Hugh Jackman, the most charismatic Broadway leading man of his generation; and songs by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul , the acclaimed duo behind the lyrics for last year’s hit movie “La La Land” (which won them Oscars) and the music for the Broadway show “Dear Evan Hansen” (which won them Tonys). But they are all awkward fits for this material. The songs, which shift from defiant pop anthems to melodramatic ballads, do not evoke the circus, or at least not the American version. Their soupy soulfulness belongs to Cirque du Soleil more than Ringling Brothers. And while Mr. Jackman is a dashing presence with an easy smile, his earnest performance could use a few knowing winks. The script doesn’t do him any favors. Its first joke is a spit-take, and it doesn’t get any wittier than that.

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The Greatest Showman Reviews

Give in. Roll up. Sing along.

Full Review | Aug 22, 2023

The vivid cinematography by Seamus McGarvey and the exquisite costumes by Ellen Mirojnick capture the magic of Barnum’s circus and give the picture an attractive period feel.

Full Review | Dec 15, 2022

Quite incongruously, The Greatest Showman suggests that Barnum is a heroic figure, a woke entertainer and family man, who also capitalized on animal suffering and the veritable prostitution of human oddity.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Mar 16, 2022

The movie is a big, loud explosion of color and excitement but one the party's over, somebody's got to clean it all up.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 11, 2022

So nice, so cheerful, its characters so indefatigable that it's impossible to hate.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Aug 24, 2021

It's a rollercoaster of story and music that occasionally moves too fast but delivers enough thrills along the way to be worth the price of admission.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 3, 2021

A serious look at P.T. Barnum's life requires acknowledgment of the ways in which his success manifested. The Greatest Showman is therefore just as much of a fraud as he was.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 2, 2020

While one can fault this sugar-coated take on the Barnum character, it's hard to find fault with Jackman's portrayal of him.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4.0 | Sep 9, 2020

Hugh Jackman dazzles as circus tycoon P.T. Barnum in this criminally underrated biopic featuring a timeless Pasek & Paul songbook of "A Million Dreams" and "Never Enough."

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 3, 2020

It won't be classified as the best movie in the world (or musical for that matter) but it is easy to see why the appeal for the film has been infectious and unanimous.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 26, 2020

A festive musical treat with an enchanting performance from Jackman and a feel-good soundtrack you'll be hunting down as soon as you leave the cinema.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 19, 2020

What is said to be a 'celebration of humanity' lacks just that, using flair and manipulation instead.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 23, 2020

The Greatest Showman is a spectacular modern musical extravaganza in the classic Hollywood style.

Full Review | Jul 17, 2020

Thinking back on this film is giving me a headache. It is a frustrating mess, with much to mock. However, I do admit to being swept along with some of the musical numbers and circus scenes. Ultimately I have to accept that a large part of me enjoyed it.

Full Review | Jul 2, 2020

This movie does a solid job of presenting its story and providing a fantastic place for these new songs.

Full Review | May 21, 2020

This movie does still suffer from a lot of the same problems, musically, that La La Land did, where I can't understand a word that the chorus is saying.

Full Review | May 14, 2020

It had that magic of a musical... I don't know if I'd recommend it. It felt like it was peacocking me the whole time.

This isn't a subtle, finely tuned piece of art, this is cheery lunacy that revels in its attempt to call back on the positive musicals of the past.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 15, 2020

My question is, why not focus on the real facts by digging deeper? What a shame, not only to Barnum's character but also to Lind's.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 27, 2020

The Greatest Showman is so much fun. You got Hugh Jackman's contagious charisma, Zac Efron holding his own and Zendaya flying through the air with ease.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 22, 2020

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‘the greatest showman’: film review.

Hugh Jackman plays P.T. Barnum in 'The Greatest Showman,' a family musical inspired by the life of the legendary 19th-century ringmaster, which also features Zac Efron, Michelle Williams and Zendaya.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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The sawdust and sequins are laid on thick, the period flashbulbs pop and the champagne flows in The Greatest Showman , yet this ersatz portrait of American big-top tent impresario P.T. Barnum is all smoke and mirrors, no substance. It hammers pedestrian themes of family, friendship and inclusivity while neglecting the fundaments of character and story. First-time director Michael Gracey exposes his roots in commercials and music videos by shaping a movie musical whose references go no further back than Baz Luhrmann . And despite a cast of proven vocalists led with his customary gusto by Hugh Jackman , the interchangeably generic pop songs are so numbingly overproduced they all sound like they’re being performed off-camera.

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Film Review: ‘The Greatest Showman’

A wholesomely enraptured musical about the life of P.T. Barnum turns out to be a crowd-pleaser in the best sense: It's a concoction that soars.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

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“ The Greatest Showman ” is a good old-fashioned cornball PG musical that is also a scintillatingly flashy — and woke! — immersion in up-to-the-minute razzmatazz. It takes the life of P.T. Barnum, the anything-goes circus impresario of the 1800s, who is played with irresistible effervescence by Hugh Jackman , and turns him into a saintly huckster-maestro who invented the spirit of modern showbiz by daring to follow his dream. At the same time, the film takes Barnum’s infamous believe-it-or-not attractions — Tom Thumb, Dog Boy, Tattoo Man, the Bearded Lady — and makes them over into sensitive enlightened outcasts, a kind of 19th-century freak-show gallery of identity politics.

How piously anachronistic is that? Very. Yet “The Greatest Showman” wants to give you a splashy good time, and does, and it’s got something that takes you by surprise: a genuine romantic spirit. The numbers are shot like electromagnetic dance-pop music videos, and to say that they sizzle with energy wouldn’t do them justice — they’re like a hypodermic shot of joy to the heart. You know you’re watching conventional chorus-line-with-a-beat flimflam, all decorating a tall tale, but that’s the ultra Hollywood pleasure of “The Greatest Showman.” It’s a biopic that forges its own uplifting mythology, and if you think back on it when it’s over and feel, maybe just a little bit, like you’ve been had — well, that’s part of its sleight-of-hand charm. P.T. Barnum would have been suckered by it, and would have approved.

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The movie, shot with richly lacquered pizzazz by Seamus McGarvey, opens with a spectacular shot of Jackman’s Barnum, silhouetted under the rafters in his signature long coat and top hat, looking like as pure a creature of theatrical bravado as the M.C. in “Cabaret.” And though “The Greatest Showman” offers a much more family-friendly vision (this film about the sleazy bottom rungs of the entertainment world is one you could easily take young children to), it conjures the spirit of Bob Fosse — his imperious snap and verve — in the sexy precision of its choreography, and in its vision of a lowly circus that titillates and thrills because it demonstrates that all the world’s a stage.

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The basic storyline, however, is tidy in its symmetries, made with a pleasing neo-traditional studio-system squareness. That first number, “The Greatest Show,” with its wild and primitive beat merging into a powerful hook, breaks off after about a minute, leaving us salivating for more stage ecstasy. The movie then flashes back to the 1820s, when Phineas Taylor Barnum is just a kid (played by Ellis Rubin, who suggests a hungry young Pete Townshend), traveling to rich people’s houses along with his tailor father, and watching the two of them get treated like the lowliest of servants. At the snobby home of the Halletts (Frederic Lehne and Kathryn Meisle), Phineas meets their daughter, Charity (Skylar Dunn), and the soaring duet “A Million Dreams,” with its creamy pristine harmonies, establishes “The Greatest Showman” as one of those movies in which a couple fall in love as children, and the enchanted innocence of their connection lets us know that that love will be forever.

Phineas grows up into P.T. Barnum (Jackman), who woos Charity (Michelle Williams) over the disdainful objections of her father. This sets up the essence of his motivation to become a showman: He wants to give Charity the life to which she’s accustomed — and, while he’s at it, to whip her father at his own game.

Barnum ekes out a living in a Dickensian shipping office, and when the company goes bankrupt, he’s got nothing to lose. The couple now has two daughters (Austyn Johnson and Cameron Seely), and Barnum’s fantasy is a kind of trifecta: He wants to fend for his family (he’s wounded at not being able to buy his girls ballet slippers), he wants to validate the love of the wife he lured into poverty — and he wants to do something that no one has done before: turn life, in all its gutbucket wonder, into a star attraction.

Jackman plays Barnum with a rapacious grin, his eyes twinkling with moonstruck pleasure. He wants the whole world to see what he sees, and a little more — he wants them to see the tawdry wonder of it. That will require a new kind of presentational daring, not to mention a little lying. Eagerly, with his eyes on the prize, Barnum lines up his fabulous freaks: a 500-pound man, who he will bill as a 750-pound man (why not?), dubbing him the Irish Giant (even though he’s Russian). A 22-year-old dwarf known as Tom Thumb (Sam Humphrey), whom he dresses as Napoleon on a horse. And, of course, the most singular freak of all: Lettie Lutz (Keala Settle), the Bearded Lady. Barnum convinces these benighted folks to join his circus, housed in a building in Manhattan just as the city’s concrete grandeur is locking into place — the new world being constructed around horse-and-buggy paths. Barnum is already plugging into the notion that people are numb, jaded, overwhelmed. They need something to prod them to life.

The crowd, he says, will have a chance to behold the humanity of his freaks — and that’s true, in a sense, to what P.T. Barnum did. He dragged the strange and the deformed out of the closet (literally, in some cases), and forced his audience to confront their realness. Yet if you’re really going to get real about it, he was a master exploiter. This was not “My Left Foot;” he packaged his freaks as The Other — and “The Greatest Showman” turns Barnum, for all his carny capitalism, into the multiculti Mother Teresa of oddball showmanship. He really believes he’s doing it for their own good, and so does the movie.

Yet when Barnum’s attractions join together to sing and dance their eccentric asses off in the exhilarating chorus of “Come Alive” (“ And you know you can’t go back again,/ To the world that you were living in,/ ’Cause you’re dreaming with your eyes wide open”), the number sweeps you into its majestic syncopated flow, with its hint of gospel, its surge of melodic compassion. The songs were composed by the team of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who wrote the lyrics for the songs in “La La Land,” and they’ve crafted rhythms and melodies that drive the movie — gorgeously — forward. When the Bearded Lady gets her own number, the inspirational rouser “This Is Me,” the scene is a pure-hearted epiphany. It’s enough to make you want to see “The Elephant Man” turned into a musical written by Lady Gaga.

The numbers in “The Greatest Showman” have a dance-pop fire that keeps you hooked, and that bursting-out quality recalls, at times, the spirit of “Moulin Rouge!” Yet “The Greatest Showman,” while it’s all but destined to become the crowd-pleaser of the holiday season (and, just possibly, a surprise awards contender), lacks the darkly audacious grandeur that made “Moulin Rouge!” a work of movie-musical art. The film’s conflicts have a storybook simplicity.

Barnum hires, as a right-hand man, a slumming rich-kid playwright, Phillip Caryle ( Zac Efron ), who’s got downscale showmanship in his blood. Phillip is quickly consumed by his love for the black trapeze artist Anne Wheeler (Zendaya), a clandestine passion that builds to the devotional duet “Rewrite the Stars,” a number literally — and spiritually — suspended in air. Efron and Zendaya have a terrific chemistry — they never stop seeking each other out. But it’s Barnum’s wandering eye that drives the film’s conflict.

During a visit to Queen Victoria, he meets the celebrated Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind (Rebecca Ferguson), and he’s captivated — by her voice, and her crystaline presence. On stage in America, kicking off the tour that Barnum leverages his empire to arrange (which really happened), Jenny, in ruby-red lipstick, sings “Never Enough” with an ecstatic solemnity that leaves you floored. The spectacular vocals are by “The Voice” alum Loren Allred, who with her rapturous cries of “Never! Never!” sounds like Adele ascending into the heavens. Has Barnum fallen in love? A little bit, yet he remains faithful to his wife. The real thing he’s fallen for is Jenny’s dream of upscale sublimity. So he begins to leave his freaks behind.

The director, Michael Gracey, is an Australian maker of commercials who has never directed a feature before, and he works with an exuberant sincerity that can’t be faked. “The Greatest Showman” is a concoction, the kind of film where all the pieces click into place, yet at an hour and 45 minutes it flies by, and the link it draws between P.T. Barnum and the spirit of today is more than hype. Barnum, in his carny-barker way, knows that everyone is a star; his appeal, as Jackman portrays him, is that he changes the world by getting the whole world to believe that. He really did invent the greatest show on earth. Until, of course, it was topped by something called Hollywood.

Reviewed at AMC 34th St., New York, Dec. 10, 2017. MPAA Rating: PG. Running time: 105 MIN.

Production: A 20th Century Fox release of a Chernin Entertainment, TSG Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox production. Producers: Laurence Mark, Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping. Executive producers: Tonia Davis, Donald J. Lee Jr., James Mangold.
Crew: Director: Michael Gracey. Screenplay: Jenny Bicks, Bill Condon. Camera (color, widescreen): Seamus McGarvey. Editors: Tom Cross, Robert Duffy, Joe Hutshing, Michael McCusker, Jon Poll, Spencer Susser. Music: Benj Pasek, Justin Paul.
With: Hugh Jackman, Michelle Williams, Zac Efron, Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, Austyn Johnson, Cameron Seely, Keala Settle, Sam Humphrey, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Ellis Rubin, Skylar Dunn.

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The greatest showman.

Common Sense Says
Parents Say 168 Reviews
Kids Say 328 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Jackman and Zendaya entertain in musical Barnum biopic.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 10+?

A rich man slaps a tradesman's son for making his daughter laugh. A young man st

Longing looks and a few passionate kisses between a married couple and another c

Insults/threatening language: "freaks," "abominations," "stay away from my daugh

Adults drink champagne at receptions and privately to toast good news; two men d

Barnum is its own brand.

Any Positive Content?

Encourages tolerance and acceptance of race, class, physical disabilities, and d

The circus performers bond together and help one another feel accepted and at ho

Violence & Scariness

A rich man slaps a tradesman's son for making his daughter laugh. A young man steals bread and is later smacked for doing so. Angry protesters threaten the circus performers and later set the circus on fire. The fire leads to a supporting character being severely injured, but he survives.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Longing looks and a few passionate kisses between a married couple and another couple in love. A married man spends a lot of time with an unmarried woman; she kisses him in public, even though he doesn't reciprocate. A couple holds hands and eventually kisses and declares their love, even though they know their interracial relationship is considered taboo by others.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Insults/threatening language: "freaks," "abominations," "stay away from my daughter," etc. A white couple tells their son not to go around "with the help" when they see he's taken a black woman on a date. The racial slur "spooks" is used once, as is the word "damn." A couple exclamations of "God!"

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Adults drink champagne at receptions and privately to toast good news; two men drink shot after shot in a pub; a man takes a swig of liquor from a personal flask. The circus performers drink beer and ask to be allowed into a reception to have champagne.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Positive messages.

Encourages tolerance and acceptance of race, class, physical disabilities, and differences. Diversity and uniqueness are championed within the world of the circus, even as others consider it a "freak" show. Barnum is a purveyor and defender of mass/broad entertainment, which he believes has value, even though cultural critics prefer highbrow/fine arts.

Positive Role Models

The circus performers bond together and help one another feel accepted and at home in their community. Barnum is a showman who needs more and more fans, particularly rich ones, to feel validated, despite having an adoring and loyal wife, children, and close friends. Barnum's wife, Charity, is steadfast, loyal, and kind. Phillip and Anne fall in love across the racial divide of the era.

Parents need to know that The Greatest Showman is a biographical musical from the songwriters of La La Land that stars Hugh Jackman as P.T. Barnum, who starts out as a penniless orphan but becomes the world-renowned creator of the circus. There's a bit of language ("damn," the racial slur "spooks," "oh God!," etc.) and violence (protesters burn down the circus, a man slaps a young boy), as well as some drama surrounding the movie's interracial romance, which was taboo at the time. But overall the plot and songs are easy enough for tweens to follow -- and with Zendaya and Zac Efron co-starring, the movie is likely to appeal to them. Although it's based on factual events, the movie only covers a short period in Barnum's life and glosses over certain aspects of his career. It's not garnering the same kind of acclaim as La La Land , but The Greatest Showman 's charming leads and circus scenes should make it a fun pick for families who enjoy history, musical theater, and, of course, the circus. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Parent and Kid Reviews

Parents say (168)
Kids say (328)

Based on 168 parent reviews

Not as kid friendly as I thought

Good movie, but please add beheading by guillotine to the voilence part. no blood and it's a trick, but it should be added as an trigger for some people. also there's lots of body shaming. (fatphobia for example) of course that's what the movie is about. saying people are freaks because they aren't the norm might not be the perfect thing to tell kids., what's the story.

THE GREATEST SHOWMAN is a biographical musical about young Phineas T. Barnum's life as a child, entrepreneur, museum owner, circus producer, and entertainment producer. As a young boy, Phineas "Finn" ( Ellis Rubin ), the son of a tailor, meets Charity ( Skylar Dunn ), the daughter of one of his father's wealthy clients. He makes her laugh and earns a slap from her father for it, but the spark between them lasts throughout their adolescence, even while she's away at boarding school and he's an orphan in the streets. Years later, Finn and Charity (now played by Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams ) marry and have two girls. He manages to secure a loan to open up a museum of oddities, and when that starts to fail, he's inspired by a brief encounter with a little person to invite unusual-looking folks -- including bearded lady Letty Lutz ( Keala Settle ), Tom Thumb (Sean Humphrey), and black brother-and-sister trapeze artists W.D. Wheeler (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and Anne Wheeler ( Zendaya ) -- to join a show focused around them. With a little embellishment from costumes and makeup, he opens what will become the first circus. Although Barnum's show is critically panned, the masses love it. He earns a fortune, but Barnum can't stop looking for approval from the upper crust.

Is It Any Good?

Exuberant performances propel this musical biopic, which isn't perfect but does occasionally delight thanks to its stellar cast, led by the inimitable Jackman. There's inherent value in watching the talented Jackman sing and dance, and he's an ideal fit for playing the titular "greatest showman" on earth. The Greatest Showman doesn't delve into some of the uglier aspects of Barnum's life (like all the hoaxes he was accused of committing), but it does manage to entertain audiences with catchy original songs by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the award-winning lyricists for La La Land and the Tony-winning Broadway sensation Dear Evan Hansen .

The soundtrack is in many ways more remarkable than the movie itself, with showstopping anthems like Jackman's "The Greatest Show" and "A Million Dreams" and the romantic "Rewrite the Stars" -- a lovely duet by Efron and Zendaya. The songs will stay in your head long after the credits roll, but the plot is unevenly paced. It rushes through the buildup of the Barnums' love story and sugarcoats seedy 19th-century New York to the point that it's not really recognizable as Manhattan. It's best to appreciate the film as a flashy, colorful Broadway show, where the "book" is less important than the musical numbers.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about telling a fact-based biographical story as a musical. What makes this approach appealing? Who do you think the target audience is?

What do you think of the Barnum quote used in The Greatest Showman : "The noblest art is that of making others happy"? Do you think Barnum accomplished that?

How do you think Barnum treated his performers? Was it fair? Is he a role model ? Why has the circus become a controversial form of entertainment in more recent decades?

How accurate do you think the movie is? Why might filmmakers change the facts in movies that are based on real events? How could you find out more about Barnum's life?

Why is Anne and Phillip's relationship controversial? How have things changed since the time the movie takes place?

Movie Details

In theaters : December 20, 2017
On DVD or streaming : April 10, 2018
Cast : Hugh Jackman , Zac Efron , Michelle Williams , Zendaya , Rebecca Ferguson
Director : Michael Gracey
Inclusion Information : Female actors, Black actors, Multiracial actors
Studio : Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Genre : Musical
Topics : History , Music and Sing-Along
Run time : 105 minutes
MPAA rating : PG
MPAA explanation : thematic elements including a brawl
Award : Golden Globe - Golden Globe Award Winner
Last updated : August 6, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

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DVD & Streaming

The Greatest Showman

Drama , Musical

Content Caution

In Theaters

December 20, 2017
Hugh Jackman as P.T. Barnum; Zac Efron as Phillip Carlyle; Michelle Williams as Charity Barnum; Zendaya as Anne Wheeler; Rebecca Ferguson as Jenny Lind; Paul Sparks as James Gordon Bennett; Keala Settle as The Bearded Woman; Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as WD Wheeler; Sam Humphrey as Charles Stratton; Skylar Dunn as Young Charity; Cameron Seely as Helen Barnum; Ellis Ruben as Young P.T. Barnum.

Home Release Date

April 10, 2018
Michael Gracey

Distributor

20th Century Fox

Movie Review

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

Well, take out the lions, tigers and bears, then and add an elephant, an unlikely gang of misfits and a ring master and you’ve got … the circus . But a circus isn’t born overnight. An no one knows that better than Phineas Taylor Barnum, better known as P.T. Barnum.

Born into poverty and the son of a tailor, Barnum has a lot on his plate. He must grapple with the death of his father, the disdain of his father-in-law and the ongoing demands of providing for his family.

But he’s determined to prove himself to them—and to the world. And that means thinking outside the box.

What one person might consider a calamity, for instance, Barnum views as an opportunity. After he’s laid off from his job, Barnum opens a museum. Not just any ol’ museum, mind you. This one specializes in wax figures, preserved rarities and all things … odd. Still, Barnum’s daughters think it needs something with even more ticket-selling pizzazz—something alive and human. Like, say, a bearded woman. Or a brother-sister trapeze duo. Or a grown man who’s just a few feet tall.

According to Barnum, “a man’s station is limited only to his imagination.” So imagine he does.

But while the showman’s family and his newfound performers benefit from his creativity, not everyone is enthralled with his idea of a “circus.” Some of Barnum’s critics deride it as a “freak show.”

Will Barnum persevere in pursuing his eccentric-but-engaging vision of entertainment? Or will his rising fame and fortune blind the natural-born promoter to what truly matters in life? The Greatest Showman unpacks the answers to those questions in a musical that invites audiences to step behind the curtain of P.T. Barnum’s remarkable life.

Positive Elements

The Greatest Showman explores the twin factors that propelled P.T. Barnum to success: his need to provide for his family combined with his need to find a greater purpose in life. Along the way, Barnum becomes a hero of sorts—a hero who experiences the highs and lows that dreaming big inevitably creates. Amid his growing success, though, Barnum is dedicated to the happiness of his family. He vows to place them first as he ventures into the unknown, where things aren’t as easy as they may seem.

“We can live in a world we design,” Barnum tells his family at one point. So design they do. In the process, they recruit the outcasts of society and work hard to give them a place where they feel value—often for the first time in their lives—even though their lives are still quite difficult.

Barnum models unconditional acceptance for some who’ve been disowned even by their own families. He accepts them despite their differences in a world that, he says, may “never stop judging.” He hires people of all shapes, sizes, classes and races, and there is a sense that a “celebration of humanity” exists within the circus troupe he cultivates. A family, if you will.

Along the way, one character is inspired to pursue a mixed-race romance (in the face of sharp criticism from his family), even though it was culturally unheard of at the time. And Barnum—ever the vision-caster—tells his circus performers repeatedly that “[critics] don’t understand, but they will.”

Barnum increasingly faces the various pressures of the entertainment industry, as well as scandals that threaten to ruin his creative enterprise. But he vows that his “eyes won’t be blinded by the light.” And indeed, messages about the importance of fidelity and family resonate throughout the film.

Spiritual Elements

Barnum gives his daughters a “wishing machine,” which he says will make their dreams come true. (Of course, he’s the one who works hard to fulfill their every desire.)

Angry members of the Catholic Legion of Decency protest the circus.

Sexual & romantic Content

Phillip and Anne (the mixed-race couple mentioned above) sing a song that includes some lyrics that are mildly suggestive: “You know I want you/ … I know you want me/ … But I can’t have you.” We see the pair swing together, intertwined, on the end of a rope. After a fall, Anne rolls on top of Phillip. They briefly hold hands and kiss in two scenes. Likewise, P.T. Barnum repeatedly kisses his wife, Charity.

Another female character tries to seduce Barnum, but he declines her advances. Later, she kisses him unexpectedly onstage, resulting in a scandal.

Women in the circus crew often wear tight, burlesque outfits (lace and garter belt stockings) that reveal their upper thighs and cleavage.

Violent Content

Young P.T. Barnum is slapped, pushed and hit. Two circus members brawl with unruly men who are shouting names at them. We also see a fire (that’s set on purpose), as well as several characters bravely trying to rescue others from it.

Crude or Profane Language

We hear the word “d–n” in two songs. As mentioned, circus members are repeatedly derided as “freaks.”

Drug and Alcohol Content

Characters (including Barnum) down beer, champagne and shots of hard liquor. In one particular scene, Barnum and another character knock back enough shots to seemingly raise their blood alcohol level well beyond legal or safe limits.

Other noteworthy Elements

Barnum is orphaned after his father’s death, a fate that leads him to steal bread to survive. As an adult, Barnum lies at one point (though, admittedly, in the service of trying to provide for his family).

As Barnum’s popularity increases and his ambitions grow ever larger, he takes off across the United States, leaving his family and his crew behind. He lives lavishly. In one scene where he’s trying to impress some well-to-do patrons, he treats his crew cruelly. His wife misses “the man I fell in love with,” and his young daughters live for a time without their father’s presence in their lives. Barnum’s self-focused choices nearly cost him his marriage, but that conflict is resolved by film’s end.

Hugh Jackman, who stars as P.T. Barnum here, recently compared the iconic character he portrays to “Elon Musk or Steve Jobs.” Like those men, Barnum was truly an innovator. He constantly challenged the rules of traditional society, creating an unprecedented world of wonder as he invited audiences to gaze into the great and the unknown, the majestic and the mysterious. “Comfort,” he opined, was “the enemy of progress.”

Barnum’s extravagant circus performances appealed to huge audiences. But those shows also generated criticism from some who felt the great showman’s work was nothing but an immoral spectacle. The Greatest Showman paints a portrait of the metaphorical tightrope P.T. Barnum walked, and we’re drawn into his mesmerizing world where dreams take flight. There, all individuals have value, family is esteemed highly, and fidelity is shown to be the bedrock of marriage.

It’s a place where you feel as if anything is possible, that any dreamer can conquer the world. You might even stand to leave with a feeling of true joy thinking, as did Barnum, “The greatest art is of making others happy.”

Kristin Smith

Kristin Smith joined the Plugged In team in 2017. Formerly a Spanish and English teacher, Kristin loves reading literature and eating authentic Mexican tacos. She and her husband, Eddy, love raising their children Judah and Selah. Kristin also has a deep affection for coffee, music, her dog (Cali) and cat (Aslan).

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'The Greatest Showman': Review

By Tim Grierson, Senior US Critic 2017-12-20T08:01:00+00:00

Hugh Jackman stars as 19th century entertainer P.T. Barnum in this musical extravaganza

Source: Twentieth Century Fox

The Greatest Showman

Dir: Michael Gracey. US. 2017. 105mins

The Greatest Showman tells the story of P.T. Barnum, a 19th century entertainer born of modest means who longed to be accepted by the upper crust of society, but this strained musical is content to play to the cheap seats. Earnest in the extreme and armed with lethal amounts of razzle-dazzle, the feature debut of commercial director Michael Gracey is an all-out assault of sentiment, pop songs and dime-store psychology that’s somewhat held together by Hugh Jackman’s likably shameless portrayal of this striving charmer.

Working his bulletproof grin and sparkly eyes to maximum effect, Jackson has no problem with the overblown showstoppers

Arriving in US theatres December 20 and the UK a week later, this Fox release will hope to capitalize on Jackman’s appeal, which will be amplified by the presence of Zac Efron, Michelle Williams and Rebecca Ferguson among the supporting cast. Not terribly dissimilar from the crowd-pleasing La La Land ($446 million worldwide), which also focused on characters torn between career aspirations and domesticity, The Greatest Showman stands as one of the most viable counterprogramming options to The Last Jedi — although it will face direct competition from Pitch Perfect 3 .

Inspired by the life of Phineas Taylor Barnum, who masterminded must-see spectacles involving human curiosities and circus acts, the movie follows as lowly commoner Barnum (Jackman) wins the heart of well-to-do local beauty Charity (Williams) and raises a family in New York; all the while holding onto the dream of making his name as an impresario. Finding fortune by creating a show featuring bizarre individuals, like a bearded lady and conjoined twins, the disrespect he feels from the city’s elite provokes him to team up with Phillip Carlyle (Zac Efron), a snobby theatre producer who becomes his ambassador to high society.

Subtlety has no place in The Greatest Showman , which tends to hammer every element of its story right through the audience’s skull. Whether it’s the preaching of inclusiveness — eventually, Barnum realizes he shouldn’t exploit his performers’ oddities — or the brash, melodramatic songs that litter the narrative, Gracey goes for unabashed emotion in the hopes that it will make his themes more resonant.

Oscar-winner composers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who wrote the lyrics for La La Land , turn in a collection of songs that runs the gamut from pleasantly sappy to blandly percussive. In general, the tunes don’t enlarge or enrich the characters but, instead, reiterate their basic drives. That’s particularly frustrating in the case of Barnum, who is meant to be a complicated, ambitious man chasing the approval of those who look down their nose at his freak-show attractions — all the while neglecting his loyal wife and adorable daughters.

Working his bulletproof grin and sparkly eyes to maximum effect, the Tony-winning Jackson has no problem with the busy choreography and overblown showstoppers, but the film doesn’t have the guts to really explore the character’s inherent darkness. Gracey makes sure this benign musical never wades too far into murky moral waters, and therefore Barnum’s flirtation with infidelity — in the form of the beguiling Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind (Rebecca Ferguson), who represents the finer things in life — lacks genuine stakes or pathos. As one might expect, cinematographer Seamus McGarvey and production designer Nathan Crowley drape The Greatest Showman in eye-popping glitz, adding to the film’s knowing artificiality.

With all that said, the film clatters along with enough gusto that it’s easy to tap into its mindlessness. For every caffeinated musical number, a relatively sedate sequence — such as one involving Carlyle and a pretty trapeze artist (Zendaya) who fall in love while serenading each other and twirling on a rope — hits all the sweet spots of a romantic song-and-dance movie moment.

Ferguson registers strongest among the supporting cast as a sophisticated artist who tempts Barnum away from his home life. (Loren Allred provides the character’s heavenly singing.) But the rest of the ensemble struggles in thin roles, although Williams does what she can to make Barnum’s ineffectual wife a smidge more interesting. Williams sings Charity’s heartsick ballad herself, and the actress’ vulnerable voice adds poignancy to a character who realizes her dreamer of a husband may be seduced by his latest obsession.

Production companies: TSG Entertainment, Laurence Mark Productions, Chernin Entertainment

Worldwide distribution: Twentieth Century Fox, www.foxmovies.com

Producers: Laurence Mark, Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping

Executive producers: James Mangold, Donald J. Lee, Jr., Tonia Davis

Screenplay: Jenny Bicks and Bill Condon, story by Jenny Bicks

Cinematography: Seamus McGarvey

Production design: Nathan Crowley

Editors: Tom Cross, Robert Duffy, Joe Hutshing, Michael McCusker, Jon Poll, Spencer Susser

Music: John Debney & Joseph Trapanese

Website: www.foxmovies.com/movies/the-greatest-showman

Main Cast: Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Michelle Williams, Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, Keala Settle

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The Greatest Showman Review

Michael Gracey's high-energy musical The Greatest Showman is a crowd-pleaser... only, it's aimed squarely at a specific crowd who'll appreciate it more than the rest of us.

That crowd is "Theater Folk," capped for emphasis, and Gracey -- along with his go-for-broke cast of show-tune belters -- dials every ounce of enthusiasm into The Greatest Showman so that the Broadway enthusiasts who buy tickets will dance up the aisles on their way out to their cars, downloading the movie's soundtrack on their phones on the way. This movie is ripped straight from the diary pages of middle school theater geeks around the globe, and that crowd will eat this up with a sugary spoon.

The rest of us, however, will appreciate the songs (this movie is brimming with infectious showstoppers) and admire the effort of the insanely talented cast while also noticing that the story bridging each musical number is thin, predictable, cliché and more than a little sappy. There's an inch of show-biz cheese baked around the entirety of The Greatest Showman , and no amount of show-boaty toe-tapping by Hugh Jackman , Zac Efron , Zendaya or their energetic co-stars can fully erase the hollow feeling you'll encounter when you try and recall the earnest Greatest Showman minutes after the credits have rolled.

It's going to sell a million soundtracks, though. That, I can guarantee.

The movie serves as a biopic of P. T. Barnum (Hugh Jackman), a broke but inventive showman who risks it all -- and suffers severe growing pains -- to establish a circus of special talents meant to entertain. The movie plays fast and loose with the specific details of Barnum's early life, rise to fame, eventual collapse and inevitable re-emergence -- anyone waiting for an in-depth Barnum biopic will need to keep waiting. All Greatest Showman is eager to get to, instead, is the next musical number. This is because director Michael Gracey knows that he has a songbook by the Tony- and Oscar-winning twosome of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul ( La La Land ), and a gifted cast of performers in Jackman, Efron, Zendaya, Michelle Williams , Keala Settle and more at his disposal. And when they click, Greatest Showman really soars.

There are jaw-dropping numbers sprinkled through Greatest Showman , a movie that fully embraces the musical genre and all of its trappings. Scenes stop cold so that characters -- from bearded ladies to gorgeous trapeze artists -- can burst out into up-tempo songs about failing to fit in, or finding your place in this crazy world. The music has a pop-radio hip-hop tone to it, with electronic beats and swelling choruses replacing traditional Broadway tempos. But for this gooey and brightly colored package, it works. Weeks after my screening, I still cue up anthems such as "The Other Side," "This Is Me," "A Million Dreams" and the opening number, "The Greatest Show."

It's those scenes that occur between the songs that fall flat, and routinely pull The Greatest Showman back down to Earth. As entertaining as the song-and-dance spectacle can be in Greatest Showman , the movie can't inject life into flaccid dramatic subplots that exist away from the circus. A love-triangle sidebar involving Barnum and a talented singer ( Rebecca Ferguson ) exists only to drive an incredulous wedge between Barnum and his wife, Charity (Michelle Williams, who somehow looks bored in an anything-but-boring exercise). Late in the game, Gracey and the screenwriters try to inject drama by turning townsfolk against Barnum's "freaks," but the conflict rises out of nothing and adds less to the overall story.

No, The Greatest Showman is better off when it's bombastically belting out memorable tunes and begging the audience to bop along in their seats. And that happens often. Jackman, as expected, attacks the role of Barnum with the same reckless enthusiasm he brings to virtually every part. A romantic dance between Zac Efron and Zendaya set to "Rewrite the Stars" will guarantee repeat business from the teen demographic. And a few months from now, as you are still playing this soundtrack on Spotify, you might be tempted to give The Greatest Showman one more try, because the music's so good that the rest of the movie can't really be THAT bad. Could it? Maybe wait until it's on DVD, so you can skip right to each musical number, and enjoy them on repeat for an eternity.

Sean O’Connell is a journalist and CinemaBlend’s Managing Editor. Having been with the site since 2011, Sean interviewed myriad directors, actors and producers, and created ReelBlend, which he proudly cohosts with Jake Hamilton and Kevin McCarthy. And he's the author of RELEASE THE SNYDER CUT, the Spider-Man history book WITH GREAT POWER, and an upcoming book about Bruce Willis.

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The Greatest Showman Review

Hugh Jackman probably is the greatest showman alive, but the movie of the same name doesn't provide an amazing venue for that talent.

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It’s been mused before that Hugh Jackman was born in the wrong era. As an immensely talented song and dance man, he would have ruled on high from Vaudeville and the glitzy black and white toe-tappers that were the closest the Depression generation came to superhero events. Yet even with multiple Tonys and an Oscar nomination for Les Miserables under his belt, Jackman’s desire to truly bring that kind of unabashed conviviality back to the mainstream has never been so fully realized as in The Greatest Showman . For here is an old-fashioned star vehicle that was designed from the ground up to showcase his talent with an intentionally jarring modern pop undercurrent.

Featuring multiple songs that could just as easily be the basis for extra tracks on Taylor Swift’s newest album, The Greatest Showman aims to be both a classic kind of family entertainment and something as anachronistic as Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! But while it daringly features its own original music, unlike Luhrmann’s pop collage, Showman also lacks that inspiration’s audacity and subversive streak. It is going for a broader commercial audience than Luhrmann’s art house darling, but in the process Greatest Showman becomes as innocuous and toothless as the benign Top 40 bubblegum it so desperately emulates. Hence why despite its circus and human “oddity” subject matters, the strangest sight is that of a musical determined to play for a generation that doesn’t watch musicals.

Envisioned with a glow so rosy behind its lens that it’s a wonder the scenery itself isn’t blushing, The Greatest Showman tells with immeasurable cheer the life story of P.T. Barnum. Legend suggests Barnum was the man who originated the phrase, “There’s a sucker born every minute,” but as portrayed by a buoyant and joyful Jackman, that could never be. As relayed through a massively efficient exposition song, he is but a tailor’s boy who falls in love with a girl born from New York high society. As a teenager, he convinces Charity (Michelle Williams) to run away with him and start a new life. But 10 years later, and with two daughters to support, their tenement lifestyle chafes Barnum’s thwarted ambition.

Luckily this is nothing to worry about. No conflict in this film is too insurmountable when faced with a little American gumption and a slickly produced four-chord song. Soon enough Barnum has his idea for a show that stars people who he historically called “freaks,” although this glistening version never has Barnum utter such a word. They are gifted people like the Bearded Woman (a soulful Keala Settle) or a dwarf dressed as Napoleon named Charlie (Sam Humphrey). Barnum is even depicted in the film as a free-thinker as much as an opportunist when he hires Zendaya’s Anne Wheeler as his star African American acrobat.

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By recasting the shrewd capitalistic venture that popularized the term “freak show” into an empowering articulation of beautiful individualism, everything Barnum and his new business partner, the delightfully bored blue blood Phillip Carlyle (Zac Efron), is swell until ol’ P.T. begins chasing dreams of high society acceptance, and lets a seductive opera singer (Rebecca Ferguson) into his oeuvre. But even then, the songs are epic crowd-pleasers.

In many ways, the movie’s ultimately central conflict of an artist with mainstream success wishing to crossover into rarified respectability feels intimately drawn from Jackman’s own career. Despite being loved for his blockbuster roles, particularly those involving mutants and other types of “oddities,” Jackman still crosses the culture lines to be valued as a sensitive artiste on the boards of Broadway, or in decidedly less four-quadrant films like Prisoners and The Fountain . However, that narrative of tortured ambition is not what’s on Greatest Showman ’s mind… or in its feet. To showcase the intended beauty of the many waltzing set-pieces, any narrative beats are drenched in a saccharine glaze so heavy that it could drown one of P.T.’s elephants.

This unfortunately leads most of the supporting roles to be ticket stub thin, as Michelle Williams is wasted in the part of supportive (but suffering) wife, and all the gifted performers are treated with the level of sincerity found in a greeting card. Some of that thinness is beneficial, however, as Zendaya’s undeniable charm wouldn’t have felt any more out of place in this 19th century setting than if she had whipped out an iPhone.

Still, like the older musical vehicles, narrative and character are but scenery on the drive toward the next song, and first-time director Michael Gracey achieves a splendid and acutely glossy affectation to all of the musical numbers. Tracking each of the heavily choreographed belters with a wildly aggressive camera, there is an undeniable shimmer to the taps. One particular highlight is where Jackman and Efron haggle over the latter’s percentage in the circus as a business partner. It’s a bit that wouldn’t have been out of place for Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor, and the movie would have been better served to have them musically spar more.

Unfortunately, most of the music from Benji Pasek and Justin Paul becomes the movie’s greatest albatross. With nearly every number designed to evoke the faux-empowerment of a Katy Perry anthem like “Firework” or “Roar,” it becomes just as insipid as those squad goals, save for that Showman ’s imitations often miss the tantalizing hook. The two exceptions are Settle’s showstopper about not being ashamed for being different, “This is Me,” which errs closer to a Lady Gaga ballad, and “Never Enough,” Ferguson’s big Adele-styled showcase in an opera house. It has as much to do with opera as “Rolling in the Deep,” but damned if it won’t bring the house down.

Intriguingly, Pasek and Paul wrote the lyrics for last year’s La La Land , and as they take the reins for song and lyrics here, they aim to make something far less nostalgic. However, the contrast just heightens the notable disappointments in Showman ’s book of songs when it has much better singers than Ryan Gosling, not least of which includes Hugh Jackman, and yet the film doesn’t have a fraction of the art or joy that came from La La ‘s more limited range.

The Greatest Showman is so eager to entertain, and so earnest in its sentimentality, that it is hard to fully begrudge its bounding goodwill. The strategically placed syrup might be as calculated as a sales pitch from the real P.T. Barnum, but there is a harmless desire to simply entertain that is occasionally charming. It probably is true that Jackman is the greatest showman alive, but he deserves a better venue than this to exhibit that magic.

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2.5 out of 5

David Crow | @DCrowsNest

David Crow is the movies editor at Den of Geek. He has long been proud of his geek credentials. Raised on cinema classics that ranged from…

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‘The Greatest Showman’ Review: Hugh Jackman Shines in a Joyfully Insane Spectacle Worthy of P.T. Barnum’s Name

David ehrlich.

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Ignore the vintage 20th Century Fox logo that appears on screen at the start of the film, “ The Greatest Showman ” is nothing if not a uniquely 21st century spectacle, a gaudy sonic boom of musical cinema that tries to sell you on the magic of the movies like it’s Black Friday at a store that’s going out of business. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to a joyfully insane experience that’s as subtle as a circus and twice as loud. Forget the multiplexes; this is a movie that feels like it was made to be screened on a Jumbotron in the middle of Times Square as a shimmering advertisement for its own existence.

Shamelessly familiar and profoundly alien in equal measure, “The Greatest Showman” takes a billion of the world’s oldest story beats and refashions their prefab emotions into something that feels like it’s being projected from another planet. A lot of that strangeness is owed to the fact that the film is structured like a Broadway musical that’s been thoughtlessly repackaged as an 105-minute movie; its songs are stacked on top of each other like kids hiding inside a trench coat, screenwriters Jenny Bicks and Bill Condon hoping you’ll be too amused to notice that all of these numbers don’t actually add up to a coherent plot. Oh, you’ll notice , but you might not care.

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And really, how could you? When Hugh Jackman stands in a spotlight and sings that “this is the moment you’ve been waiting for,” you can’t help but take the guy at his word. Set sometime in the 1840’s and scored to a tight array of tunes written by “La La Land” duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, “The Greatest Showman” might sound like the first Hollywood musical of the Jack Antonoff age (brace for maddeningly catchy pop songs full of hi-hats, deep bass fills, and IMAX-sized choruses), but this is an old-fashioned thing at heart. It’s a wide-eyed myth about an iconoclast who dragged the American dream into waking life through sheer force of will, first-time director Michael Gracey following in Baz Luhrmann’s oversized footsteps as he uses contemporary aesthetics to convey a hero who was ahead of his time. It all starts with a shout:

We learn everything that the film wants us to know about its Barnum in the span of a single song: He begins as the poor son of a tailor and falls in love with a rich girl named Charity ( Michelle Williams ), whose strict father sends her to boarding school because she had the temerity…to stick out her tongue. When Barnum’s father dies he resorts to stealing bread, but his outlook on the world is forever changed when a disfigured stranger hands the starving kid a shiny red apple out of pity (a transformative moment that’s inexplicably draped in fairy tale terror). He and Charity get married, they have two cherubic daughters, and Barnum accepts a menial job as a clerk at an office next to a cemetery. When the business goes belly up, he uses some fake collateral to swindle a bank out of a $10,000 loan and open a museum of morbid curiosities.

Buckle up, because all of that happens in five minutes , give or take, and the movie only begins in earnest once Barnum realizes that his attraction will need some living acts if it hopes to survive. The next thing you know, he’s assembled an eager chorus of “freaks” to parade in front of an unsuspecting public, luring them out of the shadows in order to profit off their shame. There’s a Bearded Woman with a heavenly voice (Keala Settle), a grown man in a kid’s body (Sam Humphrey), a giant, a fire-breather, and more. It’s something of a win-win, as these outcasts get to reclaim a measure of pride, and Barnum gets to thumb his nose at all the people who said he’d never amount to anything.

Still, even though Settle leads the cast in a rousing performance of the anthemic “This Is Me,” it’s hard to buy “The Greatest Showman” as much of an empowerment story when most of the circus performers are denied even a sliver of personal agency, their various storylines congealing into one as they accept their few minutes of screen time.

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Consider it Barnum’s narcissistic genius at work: He’s not just the greatest showman, he’s also the star of the show. As well he should be. Jackman made an indelible Wolverine, but Barnum is the role he was born to play. A stage veteran with such refined charm that it can’t help but invite a certain degree of suspicion, Jackman has already proven that he can sell audiences on a lovable flimflam man (he does it twice over in “The Prestige” alone), but here he gets to combine his strengths with a part that allows him to hoodwink us and act the hero at the same time. In a movie where virtually nothing is believable, or even tries to be, Jackman manages to sell every note and adjust for inflation. How cynical and canny that the movie let’s him get away with that, every inch of its glossy plastic world reflecting its hero’s narcissism (you can almost see the seams in the backdrop that stretches out behind Barnum’s apartment).

It’s a performance so big that the movie barely has room for anyone else, but the most beautiful people always manage to find the spotlight. “High School Musical” alum Zac Efron shines as a well-heeled producer who becomes a self-made freak by distancing himself from high society. He finds his way into both of the film’s show-stopping numbers: One is a spirited and sexually charged dance with Jackman where the two men play with shot glasses like they’re a top hat and cane. The other is a soaring triumph of aerial choreography, as Efron tries to woo a black trapeze artist ( Zendaya , exuding star power from every one of her invisible pores), whose skin has limited her options and forced her to become one of “the runaways who’ll run the night.” Race is never explicitly mentioned in a movie that has zero interest in unpacking Barnum’s complicated social politics, but Zendaya’s arc manages to reflect the real showman’s eventual reverence for all human life.

“The Greatest Showman” suggests that its hero wasn’t just a richer man for his time spent with the misfits, but a better one as well, and nobody wants to dwell on the scenes in which Barnum is confronted with his carelessness for other people. That makes the stuff with Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind (Rebecca Ferguson) a real drag. The character is meant to tempt Barnum towards classier entertainments and turn his back on the freaks, but the film doesn’t have the patience to sift through all of that drama, so Lind is just reduced to a home-wrecker. Adding insult to injury, Ferguson’s big number is obviously overdubbed by Loren Allred. Even though none of the songs are performed live, and Gracey shoots most of the movie so that you can’t even see the actors moving their lips, this choice still lands with a very silly kind of shock.

Then again, “The Greatest Showman” is all about the dizzy pleasure of letting yourself be hoodwinked, and it’s a testament to the movie’s idiosyncratic appeal that it never loses its power to lower your defenses and take your breath away. Distilling all of his film’s disparate themes into the stuff of raw emotion, Gracey has crafted a wildly ridiculous spectacle that functions as an ode to wildly ridiculous spectacles, a movie that doesn’t care what you feel so long as you don’t feel like asking for your money back. In other words, this bonkers delight is so in love with its own bullshit that P.T. Barnum would be thrilled to lend it his name.

“The Greatest Showman” opens in theaters on December 20th.

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The Greatest Showman (2017)

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The Greatest Showman

Review by brian eggert december 20, 2017.

The Greatest Showman , a musical shot in the ritzy, post-modern style of Baz Luhrmann, portrays the life of circus impresario P.T. Barnum. Hugh Jackman, the congenial star of stage and screen, appears as Barnum, lending his Broadway voice to the role. The flashy numbers reach for something akin to Andrew Lloyd Webber by way of modern pop-music, but all the razzle-dazzle of this expensive production, and considerable charms of its cast, cannot distract from the film’s emptiness and forced attempts at social awareness. Setting aside any hope for historical or biographical accuracy, the film portrays Barnum as a champion of marginalized groups and outcasts. And that’s true enough, in a sense that Barnum gathered a troupe of “freaks” (the bearded lady, Tom Thumb, the poodle woman, the dog boy, etc.) and put them on display to sell as many tickets as possible. His circus made its fortune from The Other and, rather than grant his performers a sense of empowerment, he exploited them for his own gain. Quite incongruously, The Greatest Showman suggests that Barnum is a heroic figure, a woke entertainer and family man, who also capitalized on animal suffering and the veritable prostitution of human oddity. Since the film plays by the unbound rules of a musical, we shouldn’t be taking history so literally; nevertheless, the distracting irregularities here cannot be ignored.

The real-life Barnum was a huckster, drawing the masses with entertainment from “freak shows” to his own ringmaster windbaggery (he was nicknamed the “Prince of Humbug”): His circus boasted a “Feegee Mermaid,” a sideshow attraction in which a monkey’s upper half was sewn to the tail of a fish. People with physical defects, almost exclusively non-white, were put on display as “human curiosities”—among them the Guyanese-born Prince Randian, “the human torso” who also appeared in Tod Browning’s Freaks (1932). Barnum helped make stars out of the “Siamese Twins,” Chang and Eng Bunker. He sold tickets to the autopsy of his star Joice Heth, an African-American performer his show claimed was 161 years old. And when his main attraction, a six-ton African elephant named Jumbo, died after more than twenty years in captivity, Barnum separated the remains into pieces, sent those pieces to several touring shows, and sold tickets to Jumbo’s various body parts. Later in life, though he held steadfast to an anti-slavery rhetoric, his shows continued to feature blackface minstrelsy and promote abhorrent racial stereotypes. Call it a historical irony that the screenplay by Jenny Bicks and Bill Condon treat Barnum like a social justice warrior.

Nineteenth-century New York circuses were unpleasant places by today’s standards, filled with vile smells, cruel people, and mistreatment abound, but the filmmakers rethink history and present them in an acceptable light. The film opens with a young Barnum growing up on the streets of New York. After reaching adulthood, he marries Charity (Michelle Williams), a childhood sweetheart from a well-to-background. They have two young girls and live a modest life. Before long, the restless Barnum dreams up a “museum” of oddities, both human and otherwise. He recruits a group of “peculiar” people for his museum and sells tickets in hopes of providing “a good laugh” to spectators. Aside from a few anti-freak protests and a subplot about racism (directed toward a trapeze artist, played by Zendaya, who seems poised for real stardom), Barnum resolves that bad press is good publicity, and he continues making a fortune. At the same time, Barnum resents that the upper crust hasn’t accepted him as artistically viable. Despite having their wealth, he doesn’t have their class. To remedy this, he hands over the sideshow to his junior partner (Zac Efron) and begins promoting Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind (Rebecca Ferguson), much to the dismay of his family and freakshow performers. Of course, he inevitably learns that his true calling belongs not on a posh concert tour, but under the tent.

First-time director Michael Gracey, whose experience in commercials and special FX leaves him ill-suited for the complicated task of shooting a musical, apparently shot every scene from every angle, and then left the footage to his staggeringly large team of six editors (!). The result is a mishmash of cutting in each musical number, leaving the viewer in confusion from the lack of visual coherence. Elaborate set designs, costumes, and CGI-enhanced backdrops give the picture the requisite visual spectacle. But Gracey seems to have borrowed the same manner of confusing excess as his fellow Aussie, Luhrmann. Accordingly, everything onscreen looks gorgeous, including production designer Nathan Crowley’s stagy sets and costumer Ellen Mirojnick’s theatrical costumes. Still, the material might work better on the stage, even if many of the songs have a sameness in both style and message. Among the standouts is “Come Alive,” a number that presents a clever mimicry of Michael Jackson’s mid-1980s sound.

Although this review talks a lot about actual history versus the film’s representations, it should be stated that films are not required to represent an accurate history. Every time you read “based on a true story” before a film, you should raise an eyebrow and approach with suspicion, and remind yourself that films are not histories. Some historical inaccuracies are easy to overlook when they’re limited to having a few facts or timelines wrong for dramatic effect. This is the nature of cinematic storytelling. But historical retellings that include hero worship, especially when the given hero remains suspect, presents a troublesome deviation that, in the case of The Greatest Showman , cannot be ignored. After all, Barnum was a professional hype artist not above the occasional exaggeration (or outright lie), racial prejudices, a willingness to exploit for his own profit, and a barker’s subtlety (today he might have run for president). Calling him a humanitarian for putting people of various races, creeds, colors, and shapes on stage is hardly heroic if it’s for all the wrong reasons (some of which this film repeats). Many will enjoy The Greatest Showman for its surface sheen; however, even a cursory glance into the real story makes the film feel like a deception that attempts to give marginalized people a voice but instead continues to exploit them.

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The Greatest Showman Review

26 Dec 2017

The Greatest Showman

A year ago, La La Land was hailed as the saviour of the movie musical, but it only went so far, aping the look but not the tone of the old classics. The Greatest Showman , on the other hand, is an unabashed throwback, consciously modelling itself on the likes of Carousel and The Greatest Show On Earth , but adding modern pop tunes and a whole heap of CGI. It races along at a breakneck pace and occasionally stumbles into mawkishness, but is carried along by Hugh Jackman’s total commitment and some appallingly catchy songs.

Carried along by Hugh Jackman’s total commitment and some appallingly catchy songs.

Our hero is Phineas Taylor Barnum (Jackman), who we glimpse at the height of his circus fame before flashing back to a tough childhood on the streets — though he still manages to win the heart and hand of rich girl Charity (Williams). Dreaming of better times for them both, he cons his way into a bank loan and opens a wax museum, but when that threatens to go under he adds a collection of “unique individuals”: a bearded lady (the stunning Keala Settle), the diminutive Tom Thumb (Sam Humphrey) and more. Success follows, but Barnum is still confined to the fringes of high society. So he gambles all he’s built on the “Swedish nightingale”, opera singer Jenny Lind (Ferguson), who hypnotises him and threatens his marriage, and a high-class tour of the country’s opera houses.

The film races through its plot so there’s more time to lavish on its big-production numbers, and it’s here that director Michael Gracey’s comfort with tech is both a strength and a weakness. On the one hand, his meticulously planned dazzle really does glimmer with colour and flash, but he leans a little too heavily on the CG to stitch together impossible camera angles, create trapeze wires that don’t obey the laws of physics at all and add in animal accompaniment, in a way that sometimes amplifies artificiality in an already tall tale. Perhaps that’s in keeping with his subject — Barnum did, after all, put his giant on stilts and stuff the shirt of the “world’s fattest man”, so perhaps too much seemed like just enough.

Still, the story’s more or less just a hook for, firstly, a succession of songs by Dear Evan Hansen ’s Pasek and Paul, and they largely deliver. There are four or five absolute bangers here, and you can count on at least one sticking in your head for a week or more. And secondly, it allows us to watch a brash, big-hearted, blindly optimistic turn from Hugh Jackman as the unsinkable Barnum himself. It’s ultimately about that hoariest of clichés — learning what’s really important in life — but it’s delivered with such sincerity and heart that it’s hard to mind.

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The greatest showman review: hugh jackman can't save this musical.

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Why alec baldwin & geena davis aren't in beetlejuice 2 explained by tim burton, joe pantoliano reveals that will smith is responsible for his bad boys: ride or die return, the greatest showman is a disjointed, glossy, sugar-coated mess that just skates by on jackman's natural charm and charisma..

The Greatest Showman has been a passion project for star Hugh Jackman for years, first entering development in 2009. It spent years treading water before finally getting off the ground (director Michael Gracey was hired in 2011), in part due to Fox's reluctance to green light an original musical. The film explores the life of P.T. Barnum, who became the founder of the circus that would eventually become the world-famous Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus by shining a spotlight on the strange and extraordinary to bring joy to audiences everywhere. One can definitely see Jackman's enthusiasm for the material come to life on the big screen, but the end results are quite disappointing. The Greatest Showman is a disjointed, glossy, sugar-coated mess that just skates by on Jackman's natural charm and charisma.

P.T. Barnum (Jackman) is a man who comes from humble beginnings, struggling to make ends meet as he raises his two daughters with wife Charity (Michelle Williams). Barnum grows frustrated with his family's simple life when his employer falls into bankruptcy and he loses his job. Desperate to provide his loved ones the best he can give them, Barnum swindles a bank into giving him a rather expensive loan, which he uses to purchase a museum full of wax figures. Failing to sell an ample amount of tickets, Barnum shifts his focus to highlighting live acts that are unlike anything that most everyone has ever seen.

Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams on a rooftop in The Greatest Showman

His collection of oddities prove to be a smashing success, though there is tremendous blowback from the general public and the press who are unimpressed with the "freak show" that Barnum is putting on. Looking to legitimize and appeal to the high-brow crowd, Barnum recruits playwright Phillip Carlyle (Zac Efron) as a promotions man and appoints Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind (Rebecca Fergusson) to be his new headliner. But as Barnum becomes more obsessed with chasing cheers and positive reviews, he runs the risk of losing sight of what's most important to him.

Jackman is the undisputed star of this movie, and it's abundantly clear he has a blast portraying this version of P.T. Barnum. The actor has long been known for his tremendous showmanship skills, and he gets to fully display that side of his persona in his performance. The Oscar-nominee carries the film on his shoulders, singing and dancing throughout the runtime in an effort to bring joy to viewers. While there will be some debate over how accurate The Greatest Showman 's Barnum is when compared to the one from real-life (who was less savory in his dealings from time-to-time), Jackman knows exactly what this movie needs in order to land properly and gives it his all. At times, his energy can be infectious.

Zac Efron and Zendaya during "Rewrite the Stars" in The Greatest Showman

But, for better or worse, The Greatest Showman is Jackman's show through and through. The screenplay, credited to Jenny Bicks and Bill Condon, shortchanges just about everyone in the supporting cast, preventing any emotional through-line from fully resonating with the audience. Relationships Barnum has with his family, Carlyle, and his various circus acts are barely developed at all, and all of the respective arcs ring hollow due to a lack of investment. The film attempts to build towards a meaningful emotional climax, but it fails in execution since the story itself isn't handled with the proper amount of care. Most egregious is the fact Barnum's team of performers hardly register as characters and have very little to do. The group gets one moment to really shine, but even that falls flat due to poor writing. This is not the fault of the ensemble, however, as all the actors are very much committed to the numerous song and dance numbers.

In terms of the supporting cast, the biggest names (Efron, Williams, and Zendaya) are the ones The Greatest Showman tries to build up the most. Efron is somewhat fun as Carlyle, a member of the snooty theater elite, but at times the voice he puts on for the character slides into cartoonish realms. There is a half-hearted attempt at setting up a romantic dynamic between Carlyle and Zendaya's Anne Wheeler (which also bafflingly looks to tackle social commentary), but that is essentially an afterthought by the time the credits roll. Like much in Greatest Showman , it's rushed through and doesn't pack the punch Gracey intended. Williams, an extremely talented actress in her own right, is underserved as Charity, being relegated to an archetype with no real layers to explore.

Zac Efron and Hugh Jackman toasting their shot glasses in The Greatest Showman

As indicated, The Greatest Showman is a musical, and unfortunately, there's no great soundtrack to salvage an undercooked plot. Gracey makes the very curious decision to give the songs a more contemporary, trendy feel (which contradicts with the period setting), and as a result, the tunes come across as very bland. Some are catchy enough on their own, but within the context of the film, they start to blend together and nothing stands out as the track audiences will be humming on the ride home. This is all the more disappointing considering the lyrics were penned by La La Land duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who achieved great success on Damien Chazelle's musical from last year. The pair might have been better-served sticking to the classic Hollywood sandbox they thrived in before.

In the end, The Greatest Showman is an ambitious, yet misguided, production that isn't sure what it wants to be. There's no denying it looks good on the big screen, but that won't be enough to encourage audiences to check it out this holiday season en masse. The film is a bit problematic in its design, favoring artistic license that eschews the complexities of Barnum the man in order to make something easily digestible and family-friendly. All the ingredients were there to make the next great cinematic musical, but despite Jackman's best efforts, it'll go down as a well-intentioned misfire.

The Greatest Showman is now playing in U.S. theaters. It runs 105 minutes and is rated PG for thematic elements including a brawl.

Let us know what you thought of the film in the comments!

The Greatest Showman

The Greatest Showman tells the incredible true story of P.T. Barnum and his famous circus. The film chronicles the rise of Barnum (Hugh Jackman) from a penniless dreamer to a wealthy and well-respected gentleman, establishing his circus with the help of playwright Philip Carlyle (Zac Efron). Telling Barnum's unbelievable story in a musical format, The Greatest Showman showcases all the highs and lows of the infamous character's professional life.

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'The Greatest Showman' Review: A Con Artist's Bauble Of A Movie...With Great Songs

Oh, boy. Where to begin with The Greatest Showman ?

Generally speaking, if you feel the need to cover something up, then it's a pretty good indication that you know you've done something wrong. To that end, it's a leading indicator of what you're in for that The Greatest Showman 's cast includes Paul Sparks (always great, always underserved) as critic James Gordon Bennett, and saddles him first with the task of pooh-poohing the protagonists' efforts, and then begrudgingly admitting, "another critic might have called [the circus] a celebration of humanity."

For better or worse, I am not that critic.

The Greatest Showman , directed by Michael Gracey , is a musical based on the story of how P.T. Barnum (played here by Hugh Jackman ) began the Barnum & Bailey Circus (which, incidentally, closed for good earlier this year). Nominally, the idea is a winner, and it's not unlike a rollercoaster in that the highs that it reaches are thrilling. But a rollercoaster can get away with lacking a story and lacking thought; a movie, not so much.

Most of The Greatest Showman 's problems lie in the fact that it's about a known huckster and racketeer. P.T. Barnum was no saint, and this movie does its best to smooth over all those rough edges and deliver something that's as family-friendly as Barnum was ruthless and exploitative. But it can't quite do that well, either. There are just enough allusions to Barnum's mind for money that it's impossible to take him as the straightforward protagonist that the movie would like you to. When one of his would-be recruits protests that audiences will only laugh at him, Barnum's response is to say that they're already laughing — why not make a profit? This inability to brush past Barnum's less savory traits effectively turns The Greatest Showman into a sort of circus- Breaking Bad . Everything Barnum does, he pretty much does for himself, except unlike Walter White, he gets no comeuppance.

The only reason that this waffling doesn't completely sink the movie is that Hugh Jackman is perhaps the most appealing actor alive. He's so earnest and committed — and good at what he does — that it almost doesn't matter that the rest of the movie doesn't measure up. There are few things in life (where movies are concerned, at least) that measure up to the pleasure of a lavish, bombastic musical number, and even fewer when said musical number features Jackman at its center.

That said, Jackman's casting makes the decision to gloss over Barnum's story even more of a pity. He's perfect at playing the heel — take The Prestige or Pan , for instance, or try looking up footage from his turn as Gaston in the stage version of Beauty and the Beast . The best number in the film is the one in which Barnum wheel-and-deals playwright Phillip Carlyle ( Zac Efron ) into coming on as his partner, in part because it's the most contained, and in part because it's the only number that weaponizes Jackman's charm. Of course, making the musical's protagonist a devil in disguise wouldn't do; this is pure entertainment, after all. But at the very least, this very easily could have been a musical about a made-up impresario, and avoided the awkward gymnastics that this movie has to pull in order to remain clear of Barnum's more problematic legacy.

In other words, in its effort to avoid any difficult subjects, The Greatest Showman only becomes more difficult to reconcile with the history it's trying to present. It doesn't help that the movie seems to conflate race with growth and genetic disorders. Maybe there's an excuse to be made for that given the popular views of the period in which the movie takes place, but it feels like a misguided, insulting choice when the movie is vaunting progressive, modern thinking.

There's also precious little time devoted to the "outsiders" that the movie is supposed to offer a stage. Barnum is portrayed as an outsider due to his social class, but that's hardly comparable to what the rest of the people populating the circus were subject to. This isn't a complaint that the focus is on Barnum — it's inevitable that he would take center stage in a musical about the founding of the circus — but more time is devoted to Jenny Lind ( Rebecca Ferguson ), who, like Barnum, only suffers from having been born poor, and to Bennett, who is there to try to misle critics like me, than to any of the other circus members except perhaps Zendaya as acrobat Anne Wheeler. In the end, though, maybe it's fitting for the story of P.T. Barnum that the movie should so forcefully cast him as a hero, and reduce the people that he was exploiting to set dressing.

And maybe it's fitting that I was still mostly entranced. Most of the songs cooked up by duo Pasek and Paul are extremely catchy, and the opening number in particular was cranked up to eleven to the point that I thought that The Greatest Showman might end up being my favorite movie of the year. Obviously, that isn't quite the case, but I did buy the soundtrack as soon as I left the theater, which is more than I can say for some other films from this year that I thought were better made. The Greatest Showman is a con artist's bauble, which is to say: it'll swindle you and it'll lie to you, but it's not without its charms.

/Film Rating: 5 out of 10

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Movie Review: The Greatest Showman

With a colorful slew of special effects, themes of prejudice and overcoming hardship, an all-star cast, and an award-winning soundtrack, The Greatest Showman promises its audiences a world of spectacular entertainment. But does it deliver?

The Greatest Showman follows the story of Phineas Taylor Barnum, the famous founder of the Barnum & Bailey Circus. It should be noted that the movie is so loosely based on history that it almost makes one wonder why the producers felt the need to tie it into the story of Barnum at all. While historical Barnum was a greedy businessman famous for his hoaxes, Hugh Jackman brings Barnum to life as a rags to riches hero captivated by the beautiful and the strange. Historical accuracy aside, Jackman’s performance as Barnum was excellent, especially alongside co-stars such as Zac Efron, Michelle Williams, and Zendaya.

Box office results for the first week of the film were modest considering the enormous advertising campaign for the film. What’s interesting is that, instead of dwindling off into another failed high budget movie (one can’t help but flash back to Lone Ranger ), The Greatest Showman has maintained a steady audience since its release and has already grossed over $250 million worldwide. So what is it about this movie that has audiences continuing to stream in?

The greatest strength of the movie is, without a doubt, its soundtrack. This Is Me won the Golden Globe for Best Original Song in a Motion Picture, and was nominated for the Academy Awards and Critics’ Choice Awards. While This Is Me may be the crowning jewel of the soundtrack, that’s not to say that the other songs are any less spectacular. Never Enough , The Greatest Show, and The Other Side are just a few other songs that contribute to the phenomenal music. The soundtrack is incredible not only because of its exceptional quality, but also its variety. It includes upbeat, fast-paced songs, romantic duets, and heartbreaking solos, making it appealing to many different tastes.

The Greatest Showman is also visually stunning. With colorful costumes, enchanting settings, and incredible musical numbers. Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams have a breathtaking rooftop dance to their song A Million Dreams , Zac Efron and Zendaya perform beautiful acrobatics in Rewrite the Stars , and the entire cast truly gives their all in numbers such as Come Alive and From Now On. Bright and beautiful costumes decorate just about every moment. The film also takes advantage of unique and fun settings like railroads, abandoned houses, and bars to enhance the already phenomenal choreography. The special effects are fantastic, and the film becomes even more impressive knowing that many of the actors performed their own stunts.

The weak point of the move is, unfortunately, its plot. In this aspect, The Greatest Showman tries to do a little bit too much, resulting in a storyline that feels decentralized and characters that seem slightly underdeveloped. The movie chases after a number of subplots that, while engaging, become diluted due to an inefficient amount of time being devoted to them. As a result, it’s difficult to become too emotionally attached to any one character or story. This isn’t to say that the movie as a whole isn’t entertaining or emotionally moving, but it hurts to see unrealized potential in any film, especially one that is so spectacular in so many other ways.

While the story may lack centralization, it certainly doesn’t lack heart. The Greatest Showman touches on themes such as racism, overcoming prejudice against diversity, self-respect and self-love, and lastly, the pursuit of dreams against a world of adversity. The variety of unique characters are lovable and easy to sympathise with, which is perhaps why their song This Is Me , which drives home the theme of fighting for diversity, is so successful.

Any film telling the story of a famous showman is going to be met with high expectations. The visuals and acting have to be truly spectacular in order for the film to be successful. Luckily, The Greatest Showman gives its all on both these fronts, resulting in a movie that is not only moving but also beautiful and guaranteed to have you listening to the soundtrack days after you’ve seen the film. Lighthearted, fun, and stunning, it truly is an incredible show.

Originally Published February 11, 2018

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‘The Deliverance’: Glenn Close in a Flamboyant Wig Is No Match for Satan

“The Deliverance,” which hits Netflix Friday, features Close doing her outrageous best—unforgettable wig and all—to salvage Lee Daniels’ messy, derivative Satanic thriller.

Nick Schager

Entertainment Critic

Aaron Ricketts/Netflix

Not to be confused with John Boorman’s 1972 canoeing-trip-gone-awry classic, The Deliverance is a subpar exorcism movie that’s all the more depressing for being directed by Lee Daniels , whose distinctive flair is only sporadically spied amidst its shopworn clichés.

The story of a Black single mother whose domestic problems turn out to be of the devilish variety, Daniels’ first film since 2021’s The United States vs. Billie Holiday reunites him with that predecessor’s star Andra Day for horror shenanigans that grow less original by the minute. Save for outlandish supporting work by Glenn Close as Day’s biological mother, it’s a third-rate Satanic thriller that doesn’t possess a single original idea.

The Deliverance , which hits Netflix Aug. 30 after a brief theatrical run, claims to be based on “true events” and concludes with photos of the woman and house that inspired its tale. However, nothing resounds as genuine in this conventional affair set in 2011 Pittsburgh, where Ebony (Day) has recently moved into a new place with her kids Nate ( Stranger Things ’ Caleb McLaughlin), Shante (Demi Singleton), and Andre (Anthony B. Jenkins), as well as her mother Alberta (Close).

In garish low-cut tops, dark eyeliner, red lipstick, and a collection of conspicuous wigs that cover a head turned bald by chemotherapy, Alberta is a hot-to-trot grandmother who both encourages the advances of her medical technician Melvin (Omar Epps) and consistently attends her local Baptist church. Strutting around with big, no-nonsense attitude, she’s a character bordering on a caricature, and her brashness is all that enlivens these otherwise conventional and slapdash proceedings.

Glenn Close as Alberta, Demi Singleton as Shante and Caleb McGlaughlin as Nate

Ebony likes to drink and has a habit of smacking her kids around, as she does at the dinner table to young Andre. This makes Nate hate her and causes all of them to pine for the return of their dad, who’s currently serving in Iraq. Ebony has custody of her kids because she’s agreed to allow regular check-ins from Department of Children’s Services caseworker Cynthia ( Mo’Nique ), and those are unpleasant, given that Ebony didn’t inform Cynthia about her latest relocation and has no good explanation for the bruises dotting her kids’ bodies.

The Deliverance additionally implies that, unlike her mother—who’s staying with them on condition that she keep her mouth shut, which she never does—Ebony has no faith. Yet like so much of this story, details are sketchy at best, with David Coggeshall and Elijah Bynum’s script assuming that shorthand gestures are enough to establish their conceit.

Ebony’s residence has a basement door that constantly opens and is surrounded by flies (shades of The Amityville Horror ), but neither she nor anyone else ever investigates it—save, that is, for Andre, who’s found at one point at the top of the basement stairs, banging his head against the door.

This is weird, as is Andre’s habit of talking to his imaginary friend Tre. Alas, Ebony is so consumed with her own troubles that she does little about it until all three kids act out, simultaneously, in school, with Nate laughing at his teacher for having a son that died of AIDS and Nate throwing his feces at his teacher. The Deliverance later reveals that Nate also ate his own poop, yet as with other revelations about his bizarre conduct, it’s recounted without ever being depicted by The Deliverance —a strange situation that speaks to either creative reticence or post-production editorial deletions.

The Deliverance is choppy throughout, including with regards to its characterization of Ebony, who’s posited as both an out-of-control woman and mother, and a sympathetic figure who, deep down, loves her relatives—as evidenced by the fact that she’s secretly paying for Alberta’s chemo and, on her birthday, gets Shante the iPhone she wanted. Daniels wants to have it both ways but his balancing act doesn’t hold; Ebony alternates so frequently between victim and victimizer that it feels like the film doesn’t know how it wants to portray her.

That proves especially true once the line begins to blur between Ebony’s mistreatment of her children and the demon’s malevolent conduct, with domestic abuse and supernatural terror intertwined in ways that don’t make coherent sense and, consequently, undercut Day’s performance.

Through a fortuitous turn of events, Ebony is visited by Reverend Bernice James ( Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor ), who announces that she failed to save the house’s prior owners from the demon and wants a shot at redemption. To achieve this, Bernice proposes a “deliverance,” which she says is different from an exorcism—because it can be performed by any truly pious individual—but proves to be more or less just like one.

Day doesn’t believe in Jesus because of her past trauma involving abuse (courtesy of Alberta and her rapist boyfriend), and The Deliverance is committed to heading in the most predictable direction possible, with Ebony eventually reconnecting with the Lord in time to battle the nefarious spirit that wants to steal her son and destroy her clan. Much growling, thrashing about, and foaming at the mouth ensues, along with zealous prayers and scary faces—the best of which turn out to be from Close, whose late, fanged reappearance almost elicits a genuine chill.

Andra Day as Ebony and Anthony B. Jenkins as Andre

Daniels duplicates his chosen genre’s most tired tropes, from flashbacks to ghoulish visages to people clawing at their bodies, floating in the air, and having their eyes go black as midnight. The Deliverance , however, is too imitative to be scary. Despite recontextualizing these horror elements in a Black single-mom household, the director fails to invigorate mayhem that’s been done countless times before, and with a lot more balls-to-the-wall verve. All he offers up is The Conjuring lite, and since James Wan’s blockbuster is itself a hodgepodge of superior ancestors, that’s anything but high praise.

Only with Close does Daniels seem to follow his vibrant storytelling instincts, and the acclaimed actress repays him with enough scenery chewing to keep things moderately engaging. Flirting with men decades her junior and standing toe-to-toe with the formidable Day (whose intensity deserved a better role than Ebony), Close suggests the more gonzo movie this might have been—if falls short of elevating this above being simply a star-studded B-movie.

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Review: In the sluggish space psychodrama ‘Slingshot,’ no one can hear you snooze

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In “Slingshot,” a space-travel thriller directed by Mikael Håfström, the title refers to a risky flight maneuver involving orbital mechanics. Astronauts journeying a billion and a half miles to one of Saturn’s moons , Titan, will need a whip-around gravity assist — the “slingshot” in question — from Jupiter’s orbital velocity in order to make it all the way. Why are they going to Titan? It’s the only other celestial body that has liquid on its surface, methane that they intend to harvest for clean energy to combat climate change on Earth.

But despite the seemingly action-oriented premise, this psychological character study starring Casey Affleck is a slog. The film isn’t about the slingshot or the methane gas — or even climate change — but about the challenges of the journey itself. In order to endure the years-long trip, the crew needs to “hibernate” in three-month-long chunks, their sleep aided by heavy doses of drugs, which cause disorientation and confusion every time they wake up to perform some task.

John (Affleck), an ambitious pilot who made it through a rigorous selection process for this dangerous mission, spends most of his time on board trying and failing to shake off dreamy visions of a former lover, Zoe (Emily Beecham), one of the designers of the cutting-edge spacecraft. Every time he goes to sleep, he dreams of Zoe rolling around in bedsheets, and every time he wakes up, he’s fighting through brain fog in order to discern what’s real and what’s not, or fighting with his colleagues about their orders.

The situation with his crewmates, Capt. Franks (Laurence Fishburne) and scientist Nash (Tomer Capone), becomes increasingly untenable as their mental health devolves over many taxing hibernation cycles. When the ship is mysteriously damaged, perhaps from structural stress, Franks is determined to finish the mission, while Nash wants to turn back. John is caught in the middle. Despite this central tension, “Slingshot” is an undeniably sleepy film, in which a groggy Affleck stumbles around a spaceship for most of the running time.

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As Nash sows the seeds of mutiny, Franks attempts to violently wrest back control, using both physical force and mental manipulation. Ultimately, it plays out a bit like “Gaslight” in space, with Fishburne playing Charles Boyer to Affleck’s Ingrid Bergman. Screenwriters R. Scott Adams and Nathan Parker don’t bother digging into the available themes and instead throw twist after twist into the script just to keep things from getting too somnambulant.

The desire to know what’s real and what’s not sustains enough mild interest to keep us engaged, but the continual flashbacks to a syrupy and unconvincing romance, in which John and Zoe lie on the floor talking about moths, have a devastating effect on the momentum. The terrific Beecham is saddled with a dismal hairdo and an even more dismal role, her character simply an object of wan yearning for the drowsy John. Affleck seems lethargic even in flashback, and is entirely implausible as a hot-shot pilot in his late 30s. He sleepwalks through this film in more ways than one.

Håfström’s direction is equally sluggish. While there’s some pretty lighting in the hibernation pods, the creative choices made around John’s hallucinations are predictable and pat. There’s just simply nothing to hook into aside from Fishburne’s performance, which is the only captivating element of the film, and even that is derivative of his iconic Morpheus from “The Matrix.” Despite its many twists and turns, “Slingshot” shows no signs of life.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

'Slingshot'

Rating: R, for language and some violence/bloody images Running time: 1 hour, 49 minutes Playing: In wide release Friday, Aug. 30

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Blink Twice review: a 'stylish and savage' black comedy thriller

Channing Tatum and Naomi Ackie stun in this film on the hedonistic rich directed by Zoë Kravitz

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Zoë Kravitz is known for her role as Catwoman in "The Batman" – as well as for being the daughter of Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet, said Nicholas Barber on BBC Culture . But on the basis of her work on this film, I think she could become even better known as a writer-director.

A "mind-bending black comedy thriller", "Blink Twice" stars the British actress Naomi Ackie as young woman named Frida who finds herself waitressing at an event hosted by a tech billionaire (Channing Tatum). When he invites her and her best friend (Alia Shawkat) to visit his private island, "they can hardly believe their luck" and are soon tucking into the fine wines and designer drugs that are provided by the billionaire; but, as the days and nights blur into "one indulgent haze", events begin to turn darker.

Like a number of recent films about the hedonistic rich ("Triangle of Sadness", "Saltburn") the film gets off to an "intriguing and wickedly funny start", before losing its way as "the concepts overwhelm the plot". Still, it's "stylish and savage", and evidently the work of a "skilled writer-director", rather than just an actress who's "having a go at directing".

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I was pleasantly surprised, said Larushka Ivan-Zadeh in the Daily Mail . "Kravitz mixes up a provocative #MeToo cocktail" of cancel culture, forgiveness, female solidarity and more, "and does so in a way that is brilliantly entertaining and wildly funny". Meanwhile, Tatum (her real life fiancé) turns in a "storming" performance: he hasn't acted this well in a decade.

There's so much going on in "Blink Twice", viewers may feel the need for "a lie-down in a dark room" afterwards, said Donald Clarke in The Irish Times . But while it's a "glossy package", there's "not quite enough inside".

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'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice' Review: Jenna Ortega Leads Tim Burton's Fun Throwback | Venice 2024

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Was a Beetlejuice sequel on your 2024 bingo card? Did anyone honestly expect it to manifest some 36 years later out of the blue? The original grossed only $74 million in 1988, though it immediately established Tim Burton as a visionary filmmaker and set the stage for his teaming with Michael Keaton in not just one , but two massively successful Batman movies . Keaton has recently reprised both these iconic roles in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and Batgirl , but to radically different fates. Thus, it’s no surprise that a soulless corporate entity like Warner Brothers Discovery would be inclined to milk every ounce of IP in its portfolio for all it’s worth, especially if you’ll recall Lana Wachowski ’s subversive involvement in The Matrix Resurrections . Still, this same company also deleted the completed Batgirl movie as a tax write-off.

If you are a fan of the original Beetlejuice , I’ve got good news. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is actually a continuation of the first film, both stylistically and storywise. Burton’s vision from 1988 remains fully intact. If anything, he has expanded on world-building. It’s the best possible outcome from the studio’s blatant cash grab as a singular vision is rigorously and thoughtfully preserved in the storytelling.

What Is 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice' About?

Well, the Maitlands ( Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin ) from the original have moved on. The Deetzs, who bought the house haunted by them decades ago, though, are still around. Lydia ( Winona Ryder ), whom we last saw as a sulky goth teen, has parlayed her abilities as a medium into a hosting gig on a show vaguely recalling Travel Channel’s The Dead Files , complete with night vision camera footage of her investigating paranormal activities.

Meanwhile, little has changed in the afterlife. I mean this quite literally as even sets from the first film have been replicated . The hallway and waiting area are the same as you remember, albeit with different dead people passing through. Self-proclaimed “Bio-Exorcist” Betelgeuse (Keaton) is still up to no good, scheming for a way to return to life by marrying Lydia.

Things Have Changed With 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,' but They Also Stayed the Same

Lydia now has her own petulant teen, Astrid ( Jenna Ortega ), who is temperamentally her mother’s daughter but exhibits zero interest in the paranormal. The youngster is weary of her mother’s celebrity and also skeptical of her abilities due to the matriarch's lack of contact with her late husband , Richard ( Santiago Cabrera ). In this way, Astrid’s trajectory mirrors Lydia’s in the original and casting Ortega is pretty on the nose. Like Ryder and Christina Ricci before her, she fits perfectly in Burton's universe.

The franchise hasn’t been living under a rock. Just as becoming a professional medium is a natural progression for Lydia , her stepmother, Delia ( Catherine O’Hara ), has transformed from a sculptor into a multimedia artist. Screenwriters Alfred Gough and Miles Millar have done a sensible job getting the returning characters up to date. When a choir performs Harry Belafonte ’s “Banana Boat (Day-O)” at a funeral, you sense the deep respect the writers have for the original and its fans.

That said, some of the other subplots feel arbitrary . Betelgeuse’s ex-wife, Delores ( Monica Bellucci ), makes a big entrance early on, stapling her various dismembered body parts together and foreshadowing her epic villainy, but she’s barely around for most of the film. The plot doesn’t really kick into gear until late, when Astrid bonds with neighborhood boy Jeremy ( Arthur Conti ). The finale tries to tie all the loose ends together, but it becomes apparent then which of the subplots don’t have as much juice.

'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice' Stays True to Burton’s Vision

Michael Keaton smirking as Beetlejuice in the sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

While the original Beetlejuice featured its share of special effects, they were achieved without the use of CGI, which was not widely adopted by filmmakers until 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day . Discerning viewers may spot the stop-motion animation and blue screen. For the sequel, Burton has actually dug into his old bag of tricks . CGI use here has been minimal and the film hews closely to the aesthetics of the predecessor. The visuals have definitely gotten an upgrade from the ’80s MTV look, yet somehow remain consistent. It would be absolutely seamless watching both films back to back.

If anything, Burton has gone for even more retro . In a flashback of the history of Delores and Betelgeuse, the filmmaker has opted for black-and-white giallo style, complete with Italian voiceover narration. One thing that’s noticeably dialed down is Betelgeuse’s inappropriate behavior. Indeed, some stuff he said in 1988 is now considered sexual harassment. That’s certainly a change for the better, but perhaps a clever mea culpa would have been preferable to an erasure.

Rife with nostalgia, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is intended for ’80s babies . It’s truly exciting to see Burton’s return to form, making something both grotesque and funny after struggling to connect with some ambitious projects without Johnny Depp . He appears to be energized and having fun, something we haven’t seen in quite a while.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is the best one could hope for from a cash grab and a welcome return to form for Tim Burton.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is consistent with the original thematically and stylistically.
The writers bring a clear reverence for the original film that will appeal to fans.
It's a film where Burton feels like he's having fun again and playing around with his old bag of tricks.
There are many subplots that get tangential and it takes a while to get going.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice had its World Premiere at the 2024 Venice Film Festival and comes to theaters in the U.S. starting September 6. Click below for showtimes near you.

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TERMINATOR: ZERO Anime Series Hits Netflix Amid Highly Positive First Reviews

If you weren't planning to check out Netflix's Terminator: Zero anime series, you may reconsider after having a read through these first reviews...

"Three billion human lives ended on August 29, 1997. The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war Judgment Day..."

Despite decent reviews, the last Terminator movie, Dark Fate , was the latest instalment in the franchise to underperform at the box office, and it will probably be a very long time before we see the war against the machines continue on the big screen (though it's worth noting that James Cameron did recently reveal that he is planning to return to the franchise for a mysterious new project).

While the saga may be taking a (possibly permanent) break in live-action, a new 8-episode Netflix anime series titled Terminator Zero is now streaming.

The project takes the classic sci-fi franchise in a completely new direction by moving the story to Tokyo, Japan, and, for the first time, shifting away from Sarah and John Connor, who have (together or separately) featured in all previous Terminator movies.

It's unusual for the streamer to debut new content on a Thursday, but August 29 is Judgment Day, after all!

The first reviews are now in, and while a few critics weren't completely won over by the anime, the majority were full of praise for what sounds like an intriguing new take on the story.

No Rotten Tomatoes score yet, but have a read through the initial round of reviews at the links below, and let us know if you plan on watching Terminator: Zero in the comments section.

I binged all 8 eps of #TerminatorZero to write this @GamesRadar review and I’m glad I did because this is the Terminator I fell in love with as a kid. I love how @mattsontomlin and the team pay homage to the classics while still forging a brand new path https://t.co/Vgo7JVoTid — David Opie (@DavidOpie) August 29, 2024

TERMINATOR ZERO is an action-packed, thrilling story that hits the gas from the word "GO" and never stops. It takes classic Terminator themes, explores them more profoundly, and packs a considerable punch! I adored the world-building and animation in this. Bravo, @mattsontomlin ! pic.twitter.com/pEvMXAezKN — 🎥 Adam Hlaváč 💿 (@adamhlavac) August 29, 2024

Terminator Zero showcases the best within the Terminator franchise and explores elements that have never truly been touched before. Mattson Tomlin delivers a whole new direction for the Terminator franchise to follow and delivers it with stylistic flair. This is the best… pic.twitter.com/bLR81TmLkF — Chris 🦦 #VENOMANIACS (@LuminousDagger) August 29, 2024

Terminator Zero is more interested in brains than brawn https://t.co/HHguwUORZw pic.twitter.com/1hN4ttM0eh — The A.V. Club (@TheAVClub) August 29, 2024

'Terminator Zero' Review - Stellar Animation Can't Save Netflix's Twist-Heavy Series https://t.co/aR96sZkZZM — Collider (@Collider) August 29, 2024

‘TERMINATOR ZERO’ is not only the best thing the franchise has seen in years, but also one of the most stylish Netflix animes yet. Find out more in our review... https://t.co/DKZLu52aP6 — DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) August 29, 2024

. @netflix edges its animation category with a new sci-fi thriller anime series. #Terminator Read @fromdusktiljuan ’s full non-spoiler review of @mattsontomlin 's #TerminatorZero Season 1! https://t.co/OqlOSnoesu pic.twitter.com/ElDaVWMRCD — The Cinema Spot (@TheCinemaSpot) August 29, 2024

'Terminator Zero' Review: Netflix's Anime Spinoff Gives a Classic Franchise a Promising New Look https://t.co/Z4jwB17GOa — The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) August 29, 2024

Showrunner and executive producer Mattson Tomlin ( The Batman - Part II ) recently explained the decision to switch focus to a whole new set of characters.

“I think that it’s time to go into new characters and not burden myself with another John and Sarah Connor saga. There's been a run at that a couple of different times," Tomlin says. "There are a lot of callbacks to the other films. Fans who really know the movies are going to be doing the Leo meme from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, but it's not going to be as direct as John Connor walks in, because John Connor does not walk in."

Tomlin does make it clear that the show will not be a complete reboot, however.“ We're not going to pretend that the third movie didn't happen. We're not going to pretend that the sixth movie didn't happen.”

The official synopsis reads:

“2022: A future war has raged for decades between the few human survivors and an endless army of machines. 1997: The AI known as Skynet gained self-awareness and began its war against humanity. Caught between the future and this past is a soldier sent back in time to change the fate of humanity. She arrives in 1997 to protect a scientist named Malcolm Lee who works to launch a new AI system designed to compete with Skynet’s impending attack on humanity. As Malcolm navigates the moral complexities of his creation, he is hunted by an unrelenting assassin from the future which forever alters the fate of his three children.”

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The Greatest Showman movie review (2017)
They happily traveled and toured. They were classless, cheerful, and carefree. They gaily laughed, lived, and loved.". That's what "The Greatest Showman" captures. The film starts with the title song "The Greatest Show," a show-stopper with repetitive thumping percussion (reminiscent of Queen's ferocious "We Will Rock You").
The Greatest Showman (2017)
The Greatest Showman. Growing up in the early 1800s, P.T. Barnum displays a natural talent for publicity and promotion, selling lottery tickets by age 12. After trying his hands at various jobs, P ...
Film review: The Greatest Showman
Film review: The Greatest Showman. Hugh Jackman stars in a slick new musical based on the life of circus impresario PT Barnum. It's chaste, family-friendly fun that plays it safe, writes ...
Review: In 'The Greatest Showman,' a P.T. Barnum Smaller Than Life
The Greatest Showman. Directed by Michael Gracey. Biography, Drama, Musical. PG. 1h 45m. By Jason Zinoman. Dec. 20, 2017. Early in "The Greatest Showman," P.T. Barnum, played with gung-ho ...
The Greatest Showman
Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Mar 16, 2022. The movie is a big, loud explosion of color and excitement but one the party's over, somebody's got to clean it all up. Full Review | Original ...
'The Greatest Showman': Film Review
Hugh Jackman plays P.T. Barnum in 'The Greatest Showman,' a family musical inspired by the life of the legendary 19th-century ringmaster, which also features Zac Efron, Michelle Williams and Zendaya.
The Greatest Showman (2017)
The Greatest Showman: Directed by Michael Gracey. With Hugh Jackman, Michelle Williams, Zac Efron, Zendaya. Celebrates the birth of show business and tells of a visionary who rose from nothing to create a spectacle that became a worldwide sensation.
Film Review: 'The Greatest Showman'
Film Review: 'The Greatest Showman' ... The movie then flashes back to the 1820s, when Phineas Taylor Barnum is just a kid (played by Ellis Rubin, who suggests a hungry young Pete Townshend ...
The Greatest Showman Review
The Greatest Showman is a hokey glitter bomb of unbridled musical melodrama, and that's not a critique. That's the selling point. Hugh Jackman stars as P.T. Barnum, a plucky street urchin who ...
The Greatest Showman
The Greatest Showman is the feel-good (and feel good about it) movie every holiday season needs. P.T. Barnum is famous for saying there's a sucker born every minute and he's still right. For 105 minutes I'm a sucker for his movie, that may not be the greatest show on Earth but close enough.
The Greatest Showman
The Greatest Showman is a 2017 American biographical musical drama film directed by Michael Gracey (in his directorial debut) and produced by Laurence Mark, Peter Chernin, and Jenno Topping, from a screenplay written by Jenny Bicks and Bill Condon, and based on a story conceived by Bicks.The film stars an ensemble cast led by Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Michelle Williams, Rebecca Ferguson, and ...
The Greatest Showman Movie Review
THE GREATEST SHOWMAN is a biographical musical about young Phineas T. Barnum's life as a child, entrepreneur, museum owner, circus producer, and entertainment producer. As a young boy, Phineas "Finn" ( Ellis Rubin ), the son of a tailor, meets Charity ( Skylar Dunn ), the daughter of one of his father's wealthy clients.
The Greatest Showman
Kristin Smith joined the Plugged In team in 2017. Formerly a Spanish and English teacher, Kristin loves reading literature and eating authentic Mexican tacos. She and her husband, Eddy, love raising their children Judah and Selah. Kristin also has a deep affection for coffee, music, her dog (Cali) and cat (Aslan).
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US. 2017. 105mins. The Greatest Showman tells the story of P.T. Barnum, a 19th century entertainer born of modest means who longed to be accepted by the upper crust of society, but this strained ...
The Greatest Showman Review
The movie serves as a biopic of P. T. Barnum (Hugh Jackman), a broke but inventive showman who risks it all -- and suffers severe growing pains -- to establish a circus of special talents meant to ...
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The Greatest Showman Review Hugh Jackman probably is the greatest showman alive, but the movie of the same name doesn't provide an amazing venue for that talent. By David Crow | December 21, 2017 |
The Greatest Showman Review: Hugh Jackman Shines in an ...
Ignore the vintage 20th Century Fox logo that appears on screen at the start of the film, "The Greatest Showman" is nothing if not a uniquely 21st century spectacle, a gaudy sonic boom of ...
The Greatest Showman (2017)
The Greatest Showman is a movie in moments, many of them great many more of them flaccid and empty. We're whisked through P.T.'s (Jackman) impoverished childhood in a single bound before settling on his happy marriage with wife Charity (Williams), and his two daughters (Johnson and Seely) who have grown to see their father as a hero.
The Greatest Showman
The Greatest Showman, a musical shot in the ritzy, post-modern style of Baz Luhrmann, portrays the life of circus impresario P.T. Barnum.Hugh Jackman, the congenial star of stage and screen, appears as Barnum, lending his Broadway voice to the role. The flashy numbers reach for something akin to Andrew Lloyd Webber by way of modern pop-music, but all the razzle-dazzle of this expensive ...
The Greatest Showman Review
Published on 20 12 2017. Release Date: 25 Dec 2017. Running Time: 95 minutes. Original Title: The Greatest Showman. A year ago, La La Land was hailed as the saviour of the movie musical, but it ...
The Greatest Showman Review
The Greatest Showman is a disjointed, glossy, sugar-coated mess that just skates by on Jackman's natural charm and charisma.. The Greatest Showman has been a passion project for star Hugh Jackman for years, first entering development in 2009. It spent years treading water before finally getting off the ground (director Michael Gracey was hired in 2011), in part due to Fox's reluctance to green ...
'The Greatest Showman' Review: A Con Artist's Bauble Of A Movie...With
The Greatest Showman is a con artist's bauble, which is to say: it'll swindle you and it'll lie to you, but it's not without its charms. /Film Rating: 5 out of 10. In our The Greatest Showman ...
Movie Review: The Greatest Showman
It includes upbeat, fast-paced songs, romantic duets, and heartbreaking solos, making it appealing to many different tastes. The Greatest Showman is also visually stunning. With colorful costumes, enchanting settings, and incredible musical numbers. Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams have a breathtaking rooftop dance to their song A Million ...
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