When the film started out, it was so treacly awful that I was sure this was a gimmick that would be central to the conceit of the movie. And the film does improve slightly on the introduction of the second main character about 15 minutes later. But lo and behold, the script continued to be quite mundane.

It's as if the suits behind the making of this film said, "Just write a whatever script that will propel the set-pieces that will kind of evoke musicals from 50+ years ago."

Script is most important to me, and all the other technical excellence in the movie just doesn't amount to a hill of beans by comparison.