Feel like I should kick this off by saying I know next to nothing about the real P.T. Barnum. I've heard that the movie portrays him in a much kinder light than he deserves but I'm not a historian and frankly don't care enough to research so purely basing this review on the film and not on any historical (in)accuracy.

Speaking of the movie, this was pretty underwhelming for me. During the film, Barnum's act is referred to as being without substance and I feel that holds true for the majority of the movie itself. Yeah, it hits the tropes and checks the boxes but it's too rare that it bares its soul. The two big songs that found radio play are both moving, touching pieces but aside from that there's just not much here.

What may change on future viewing, should there be any, is the efficacy of the songs. Musicals are tricky. The music has to be good, very good, while the actors are often performing crazy dance numbers and not every actor is capable of that. Voice overs are fine, but this felt off to me the whole time. It was too polished, to pristine, it didn't track at all with what the actors were doing and that bugged me the whole time. Might not in the future, but it did here and a musical with poor sound work is going to fail, despite how good some elements may be.

I was able to stream this and I think anyone curious should do the same. I can't say I give this a strong recommend but some people obviously like it so if you can stream it give it a shot, maybe even just as background noise.