West Side Story 2021
West Side Story is one of the great musicals and I usually feel like leaving a great movie alone rather than remaking it. However I was never crazy about the dancing in West Side Story since it was more ballet than just regular dancing and it seemed silly for street toughs to start doing ballet. Plus the original was pretty stylized visually and the portrayal of Latinos, with most of the actors not being Latin at all, with muddy makeup, left a lot to be desired. So Steven Spielberg of all people does a remake and there is a lot to like. Movies are just made better today, with better ways to shoot dance and just better dancers. This movie isn’t all dance, but it does a great job with it, even in the opening scene when gang members are tossing cans of paint. It just crackles. Maybe not all the gang members look that tough, but they can move. And not the silly Jerome Robbins stuff, thank goodness. It is still a little silly, but not nearly as much. It was just fun to watch these classic songs brought to life. Ariana DeBose’s Anita character is very, very good as well as Tony’s second, Riff, played by Mike Faist. Rita Moreno appears in a new role and she is also very good and while it is still a supporting role, she was in it more than I thought she would be. The leads of Tony and Maria are good, but Ansel Elgort has to sing pretty high, which throws things off a little. And Maria sometimes sings too high as well. You believe they are in love and that is the important thing. The plot drags a little in the middle, especially the kind of useless Officer Krumpky song. Then it gets going again with the big fight, but they stretch the end as well. Everything is filmed more realistically (still set in the 1950’s), so the subject matter hits home more, and the fights are more violent. Spielberg said he didn’t want subtitles, but there is a fair amount of Spanish. Even though the context fills things in for the most part and they switch back and forth between Spanish and English fluidly, it was kind of annoying not to know what people were saying. So I have a few minor complaints, but this is definitely a very good movie. I will have to go back and watch the original to see how it compares.
Written: 10 Dec 2021
Owned on: UHD, Blu-ray, Digital