“The Greatest Showman” is not a bio-pic of P.T. Barnum. Instead, the production uses his accomplishments and failures as a father, husband, and businessman to inspire a Broadway-style movie musical, hoping to capitalize on the rising interests in genre, even employing “La La Land” songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul to create the soundscape of the picture. There’s a lot to be done with Barnum, and other stage and screen efforts have had their way with the controversial figure, but “The Greatest Showman” is only interested in the surface details of the subject, cherry picking his hunger for success and financial achievement to tell a tissue-thin tale of corruption and redemption. The material remains more of a stage show than a movie, and while the music is appealing and blessedly energetic, the storytelling presented is frustratingly fractured, speeding through life events without explanation, overly simplifying a life that was filled with enticing complexity.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com