The Greatest Showman, primarily based on the lifetime of huckster extraordinaire P.T. Barnum (Hugh Jackman), is lots just like the well-known three-ring circus he created. It’s awash in ohh and aah spectacle—see Zendaya and Zac Efron soar excessive above the world ground, swinging on a perilously skinny rope whereas belting out an influence love ballad!—however brief on character improvement and good old style storytelling. First-time function director Michael Gracey regularly zips from one glitzy visible and high-energy musical quantity to the following (the film is an eye-popping extravaganza), however a subtler strategy would have been simpler at enriching the story and including depth to a number of principally marginalized characters.

The movie hits most of the main factors—albeit in extremely fictionalized vogue—of Barnum’s early profession, comparable to beginning a museum in New York City stuffed with “unique persons and curiosities” (they embody a bearded girl, a “dog boy” who seems like a human Chewbacca, a fats man, a tall man, a dwarf, and a mixed-race trapeze artist). Also included are a visit to England to go to Queen Victoria (Gayle Rankin) with a purpose to increase Barnum’s credibility with high-society people, and an alluring relationship with Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind (Rebecca Ferguson), which threatens not solely the brash impresario’s involvement along with his fledgling circus but in addition his longtime marriage to his childhood sweetheart (Michelle Williams). But all of those tales are painted with broad, shallow strokes, and the songs that accompany them (written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul of La La Land and Dear Evan Hansen fame) are principally serviceable fairly than memorable. The exception is “Never Enough,” an Adele-like pop ballad sung by Lind in her American live performance debut, with Ferguson’s vocals dubbed by The Voice’s Loren Allred. It’s a rousing, honest-to-goodness showstopper that’s nearly—nearly—definitely worth the worth of admission by itself.

The Greatest Showman’s best asset is its up-for-anything solid, together with Jackman and Efron—each no strangers to film musicals. They are energetic and charismatic, and wonderful hoofers besides, however they, just like the movie’s different denizens, are executed in by a script that’s thicker with environment than with plot or character improvement. As for the film’s “freaks,” Barnum tells them, “No one ever made a difference by being like everyone else.” He offers them dignity and a house, but in addition places them on parade to make a buck. Ultimately, nonetheless, they show to be not more than a curious singing-and-dancing sideshow, with Zendaya’s Anne Wheeler being considerably of an exception: She’s at the very least given a backstage romance with Barnum’s companion Phillip Carlyle (Efron).

Original film musicals are few and much between, which makes a misfire like The Greatest Showman most unlucky. All of the performers appear to be they’re having a blast, however their enthusiasm, sadly, doesn’t translate to the opposite aspect of the display screen. The Greatest Showman is a film that was, apparently, much more enjoyable to make than it’s to look at.