Surprised that people feel this is a fitting homage to great prior musicals. Much as I LOVE Ryan Gosling and admire Emma Stone, they do not hold a candle stub to great dancers and singers like Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse, Judy Garland, John Travolta.

Both Gosling and Stone are adequate dancers, okay, but just not in the same class as the aforementioned. And both have embarrassingly weak voices...yes, sometimes their weaknesses border on the touching, but give me Ethel Merman, or Bing Crosby or Ethel Waters or Hoagy Carmichael. And if you like touchingly amateur song delivery, check out Toni Erdmann.

Add to their lack of musical talent and only adequate dancing the weak plot and the shallow characterizations and you might, like the three people I saw it with, emerge from the theater downcast and glum.