REVIEW: Hamilton

Hamilton: An American Musical (henceforth referred to simply as Hamilton) is a 2020 musical movie about the life of Alexander Hamilton. The movie is now available for streaming on the Disney+ service. The movie depicts the life of Hamilton, an up-and-coming star who prevails through the trials and tribulations of his career, legacy, and ultimately, his purpose. He learns what it means to love throughout the course of the movie. Much of Hamilton’s story is rife with scandals, revolution, blackmail, and friends and foe alike.

I’ll be honest: the only prior knowledge I had about Hamilton was from that Got Milk? commercial where the guy can’t speak because he has too much food in his mouth and no milk. He’s like “aaaaawaaahburrr” and then he starts screaming into the phone. So that’s about all the historical context I have for this movie. I clearly don’t watch enough History Channel or Drunk History.

Does the movie hold up on a streaming service viewing? Let’s take a gander!

PROS!

• The casting was superb. Each actor easily transforms into their character. You never see an actor on screen who feels out of place. The actor portraying Hamilton does a great job of pulling the viewer in and is quite a handsome fella.

• The movie has a biting, witty script. For example, throughout the movie I found myself catching slyly interwoven jokes that poke fun at love, sex, careers, and social issues. The script has more humor than I thought it would, especially for this time period.

• The plot moves along at a timely pace and never feels like a slog. Different eras are represented, and each era contains fresh dialog that’s relatable to the present viewing audience.

CONS!

• There wasn’t as much singing and dancing as I thought there would be. First, I’ll agree there is a lot of music and some dancing, but I just thought there would be more. Many songs were catchy, but honestly I didn’t feel like I had to rush out and buy the soundtrack CD.

• Nathan Lane should’ve headlined this movie. He’s a known Broadway singing and dancing icon and he would’ve brought additional energy to this movie. To not have him featured in a larger role is a missed opportunity.

• The ending is bitter and leaves you scratching your head as to what just happened. In my distinguished Internet Movie Expert™ opinion, the wrong guy won in the end. I know other movie pundits and social media darlings may feel differently, but I believe the movie’s more popular, central character (Hamilton) has too bitter a finale.

• Why the fuck did they keep calling him Tad? Was that his nickname?

There you have it, kids! You’ve just read another successful movie review here at Cinema Listed dot com. Be sure to tip your waiter and watch out for the rickets or Y2K or whatever bug was going on back then.

990,003 stars

OUT of 1,000,000 STARS