West Side Story (2021)

Director: Steven Spielberg

Starring: Ansel Elgort, Rachel Zegler, Ariana DeBose

An adaptation of the 1957 musical, West Side Story explores forbidden love and the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds.

‘West Side Story’ is based on the 1957 stage musical, and is a remake of the 1961 film of the same name.

While I can commend Steven Spielberg for making a film that looks and sounds like a 50’s musical, I also have to criticize him in that regard. We’re in the 22nd Century, and this film looks really old. The musical numbers are much too bland to appeal to the younger generation. Spielberg obviously wanted to keep the film true to the original, but I believe it should have been modernized.

Compared to recent musicals like ‘The Greatest Showman’ and ‘La La Land’, ‘West Side Story’ lacks the colour and the vibrancy that made those movies so much fun to watch. I didn’t like the music or the dance sequences in ‘West Side Story’. Everything felt very dated.

Another issue I have with the film, is its pacing. This film moves along incredibly slow, with not much interesting happening. The constant rivalry between the Americans and the Spanish became overbearing and made the film unpleasant to watch. The racial remarks also further dampened my viewing pleasure. The premise itself is also so high school and immature.

My biggest issue – and far the most annoying – was the characters saying to each other to “Speak English” – even the Spanish characters, to each other. I cringed every time they uttered this phrase, which they did about two dozen times throughout the movie. Ugh!!! For goodness sake, just let the characters speak English already; why do they constantly have to say this???

If this movie was intended to be romantic, I’m sorry but I didn’t find it the least bit romantic. Instead, I found it cliched and boring. And of all the times Tony and Maria could have been intimate, they chose to have sex on the very night Maria found out Tony was responsible for a family tragedy! (WTF!!!!!). This woman has no shame or dignity!! Shame on you, too, Mr Spielberg for adding this sex scene set literally just minutes after the tragedy, by the very person responsible for it! Seems Maria wasn’t too heartbroken after all…

In closing, I found ‘West Side Story’ utterly boring. I honestly couldn’t wait for this bland and dreary musical to end.

Although the film was a box office failure, it received 342 award nominations, including 7 Oscar nominations. Are critics and audiences actually viewing the same movie, I sometimes wonder…

Would I watch it again? Yawn, no.