Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

schaffermatt54 I watched this, for the first time since it was in theatres when I was 10, on YouTube in HD720 letterboxed at 2.20:1 on my internet-capable Blu-Ray player - the picture quality was outstanding. It was a different kind of role for Duke and, despite the obvious fact that it's not one of his or Hathaway's best, I found it enjoyable for a variety of reasons. Besides Wayne, there's Claudia Cardinale, John Smith whom I remembered from "Laramie" and one of my favorites, Lloyd Nolan. Not to mention Rita Hayworth. I enjoyed Jack Hildyard's beautiful photography and wish more films had been photographed in Technirama - it was such a versatile format, very high quality like VistaVision. I didn't let the picture's script shortcomings bother me - for my money (none!), they just didn't matter - or the probable fact that, if all it took to capsize a ship at the dock was a bunch of people rushing over to the side rail, it never would've survived an ocean crossing. Heck, it's make-believe, and it has ample verisimilitude to satisfy me. Just kick back and enjoy it.

TheLittleSongbird Is The Magnificent Showman a good movie? Not really. Is it entertaining? In some ways, yes, but it also has a number of problems. As far as John Wayne go, The Magnificent Showman is not among the best like The Searchers, Fort Apache and The Quiet Man. But he has also done worse in his career as seen(in my opinion that is) with The Conqueror, Brannigan and The Green Berets. In fact, it probably belongs somewhere in the middle.I did very much like how The Magnificent Showman looked. The cinematography, effects, costumes and sets/scenery are amazingly effective. There are also some scenes that hold up well and entertain, particularly worth of note are the climatic fire and the capsizing of the circus ship, both scenes are full of excitement and tension.The Magnificent Showman was begun as Circus World, directed by Frank Capra. As much as I very much like Capra and his films, Henry Hathaway, who the film was later entrusted to, in my view was much more suitable for the job. And while there are some assets that don't work as well as they should, Hathaway does deserve credit for directing as solidly as he did.Aside from the cinematography, effects and set pieces, the other outstanding asset is Dmitri Tiomkin's score, which is energetic, beautiful, haunting and rousing as it should be. And while I wasn't that impressed really with the acting, two performances do stand out- Rita Hayworth and Claudia Cardinale. Hayworth is captivating and Cardinale is a sheer delight. Together they are even better, here they seem to be having a contest at who's the best at upstaging the other, and it is a lot of fun to watch. Just for the record, I think Cardinale just about wins the contest.These aside, I was divided personally on the performance of John Wayne. I do like Wayne a lot, but I wasn't sure about him here. What I did like was his charisma, Wayne was a very charismatic actor and that comes loud and clear here. However, for my liking his delivery of the lines seemed rather stiff and there were times where I couldn't help thinking he was too old for the role.The film is too long, at 133 minutes it is very lengthy. This wouldn't have mattered so much if the pace and story were good, sadly neither were as solid as I would have liked. There are a fair number of exciting scenes that do elevate the story, but the more talky and slower moments are rather sluggish. The story had a great concept to work from, but the final result seemed rather over-stuffed and cobbled together, also some plot points could have been better developed. But my main gripe was the dialogue, some of which was really quite bad being very clichéd and silly.All in all, entertaining enough but has a lot of flaws that stop it from being any more than that. 6/10 Bethany Cox

kosmasp It's not an in depth look behind the scenes of a circus. But you will get to see a few things that you might not have known. The core is the story of Wayne and his family. His two families so to speak. It's nicely told, even if some things seem to happen just like that, without much of a problem (or the problem being resolved too easily).There are quite a few stunts on hand here and they are decent enough. Though sometimes when John Waynes character is doing risky things, it is so obviously not John Wayne but his stunt man, that it almost hurts. That is of course something that should not be a big problem. Or do not let it be one, if you can.

kyle_furr I'm a big John Wayne fan and I had never heard of the film. Basically all it is is Wayne dealing with a lot of problems trying to put up a circus. John Wayne and Rita Hayworth are not very good in this movie. For die-hard John Wayne fans only.