With its spring-loaded backflips, airborne spins, rambunctious kicks and balletic pivots, the athletic ensemble in “Newsies the Musical,” which opened on Sunday at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, N.J., puts up a persuasive struggle against corporate greed. But the irrepressible physicality of that scrappy band of ragamuffins is just part of what turns this canny stage transformation of Disney’s 1992 big-screen misfire into a crowd pleaser.

The story was inspired by the 1899 New York City newsboy strike. In the show’s version of history, Joseph Pulitzer, followed by William Randolph Hearst and other newspaper publishers, raises the distribution price charged to delivery boys, hoping to increase profits and offset declining circulation. This prompts poor street kids across the boroughs to form an impromptu union and take action.

Criticizing the movie will be heresy to its fans, but — call me a sourpuss — I confess I’ve always been immune to its pleasures.