The first time I saw The Greatest Showman was one of the best parts of Gardner Webb. In Gaffney, which is about 15 minutes away from GWU, has a place called The Big E. It closes itself to just GWU students at 11:00 p.m- what students usually do is see a movie. I choose Greatest Showman- due to it being a musical and due to the fact that I saw two of the actors before. I originally saw Zac Efron as Troy in High School Musical and originally saw Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean.

Of all musicals that haven’t yet made it to stage, Greatest Showman is my favorite musical. Hugh Jackman shines as Barnum- he shines a lot more in this particular role. You really get to see all of the incredible talents Hugh Jackman has. I actually was expecting Zac Efron to be amazing in this musical- and I was right. Zac has really grown up to play the part of Phillip Caryle, and it really does show in this movie. Now on to why I love this movie:
A good musical isn’t complete without amazing songs. Greatest Showman has such an amazing soundtracks. From “Million Dreams” to “Come Alive” to “This is Me” to “Rewrite the Stars”- together make it such an incredible musical. The fact that the love song happens on trapeze make Phillip’s and Ann’s relationship incredible- it was very original on what happened during “Rewrite the Stars”. Just the choreography alone is amazing- all due to various circus elements.
On top of the songs, an incredible story on how the circus was founded- yes a lot is changed from the real Barnum story, but love the particular story found in Greatest Showman. Just a story of truly accepting who you are and being accepted by others. “This is Me” really does show the “being yourself” theme. It is just an incredible musical- no other explanation.