West Side Story - Movie Review

Critics Score - 8 of 10

General Audience Score - 8 of 10

Remaking a play or a film, when a director takes a property and creates his own take or spin on already existing cinematic source material, is a fascinating endeavor. Many artists are able to modernize older material for a new generation or breathe new life into something older but many remakes just can’t compare to some originals, we know those as the classics. But Steven Spielberg wasn’t daunted by the challenge of remaking a Best Picture winning classic piece of cinematic history, West Side Story. Best Picture winners have been remade before, Mutiny On The Bounty (1935), Rebecca (1940), Hamlet (1948), and even Ben-Hur (1959) a few years ago have had different directors that took cracks at the same source material. But West Side Story (1961) is a beloved musical that won 10 Oscars, not that the others aren’t beloved, but many wondered why Spielberg would try and remake a “perfect” piece of art. Like Pablo Picasso making his own version of the Mona Lisa. While the film works well and flows smooth at the two and a half hour runtime just like the original, the new incantation of the film doesn’t bring much of anything new to the table and certainly doesn’t rival the original film. Anybody can enjoy this film, it’s so similar to the original Story and the songs and dances are immaculate, my cinephiles, critics groups and general audiences alike will all have fun watching this one, even my people from the West Side.

SYNOPSIS - We start this musical number with Riff (Mike Faist) leading his gang called the Jets down the street, snapping their fingers in time and dancing out their song. Before too long they’ve picked up some paint cans and begin defacing a mural of the Puerto Rican flag and the Jets darker skinned counterparts, the Sharks, led by Bernardo (David Alvarez), are ready to fight. A street brawl ensues but it’s only a few moments before the squad card pull in, it’s a good thing they were parked around the corner. After the police break the fight up, fortunately all participants are willing to stay and discuss matters, but it’s evident there’s some serious animosity between these two groups. In anticipation of a rumble coming their way, Riff goes to talk to his best friend Tony (Ansel Elgort) and convinces him to come to the community dance that night. All of the acting in the film is exceptional and everyone is wonderfully cast. But at the dance Bernardo’s sister Maria (Rachel Ziegler) is there, and when her and Tony see each other for the first time, just like in the original, this is where magic takes over the film and sweeps us away to a world comprised of musically choreographed street gang fights.

Once the Sharks and the Jets have learned a thing or two about ethnicity and prejudice, we’ve finally gotten the feel of what a musical with Spielberg behind the helm is like, and it’s really impressive. The beating heart of the film is the music, songs and dance sequences, which is the only area the new film make take a slight edge on the 1961 version. The choreography is virtually flawless, the dance sequences may not be of the same grandeur as In The Heights from earlier this year, but they do the original film justice. Despite the looks of this film sticking to it’s 1950’s/60’s visual style, it’s nice to have a modern day rendition of the classic. With some nice cinematography, excellent lighting and a ton of lens flares, maybe too many, the costumes and production design also of very high quality, they all combine to make some visually fixating material onscreen. I don’t need to say more about the music, it’s great and sounds almost indiscernibly different from the original. Not saying either is right, but if you choose to evaluate this film on its own, it’s an exceptional piece of cinema, if you hold it up against the original, you can still see the beauty of Spielberg’s creation, but you may ask yourself why?

SUMMARY - This film is long but the music keeps things moving and although the film doesn’t gather a ton of momentum, all audiences can enjoy what Spielberg brings to the table. He doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel, he’s given it a little bit of paint and shuffled a couple songs around, in the end this Story from the West Side still falls short of the classic, but then again I’m not sure it was trying to surpass it.