West Side Story (2021) – Movie Review | Better than the Original?

ladies and gentlemen the legend the master 
steven spielberg is back directing another  
feature film for the big screen as he is one of 
my favorite movie directors of all time and this  
time he is doing a second feature-length 
adaptation of the 1957 stage musical  
of the same name west side story so is 
this movie as great as the best picture  
winner of the 1961 west side story and 
is as good as the 1957 stage musical  
of the same name or is it just a big 
load of crap let’s find out in the review
welcome back film fans this is let’s be real brad 
today in the channel i want to talk about the  
brand new musical romantic drama film called 
west side story growing up i had no idea  
what west side story was until earlier this year 
when i heard that west side story was going to  
be coming out in december and i knew i needed 
to watch the original 1961 classic film i was  
able to watch the 1961 version for the very first 
time a day before my screening and i loved it so  
much even though it is very cheesy and definitely 
outdated it is definitely one of the best musicals  
i have ever seen i was floored away by it 
so i was very very excited to check out  
the brand new west side story film because one of 
my favorite directors of all time steven spielberg  
is making his first

ever musical and doing it
with west side story in this remake format and
being able to be more socially aware having a
lot more representation and just being able to
make his own version of west side story with
still keeping it what makes westside story so good
was exciting for me and after i saw
this at the early imax fan screening
i have to say i loved this movie spielberg just
does it again especially directing these musical
numbers that were fantastic all full frame you
knew exactly what was going on everything was so
clear to the eye i absolutely loved it so much
and that is also due to the fantastic editing
that this movie has that is almost seamless i was
quite shocked of how good it is considering that
west side story is definitely one of the best
edited movies of all time for the original 1961
film what i love so much about the music in this
movie is that if you love the original west side
story musical or the movie you are going to love
the music in this movie because it is faithful to
the original source material but it sounds so
revamped exciting explosive i was on the edge
of my seat and this is because spielberg and the
casting director and everyone who was involved
with this movie took their time to cast the right
actors to get the right people working on this
movie and it shows because all the performances
and all the singing just sounds flawless and i
mean flawless i don’t use that term all the time
but that is exactly what the musical numbers are
and i could watch these all day long speaking of
the performances i thought everyone in this movie
was absolutely fantastic especially because there
was a lot of unknown actors in this movie because
you add a lot of unknown puerto rican actors and
i thought they were fantastic in this movie and i
thought being able to add representation to this
film unlike the original 1961 film was definitely
the best change this movie could have had and it
never felt like it was shoved into your face or
trying to make a statement it is just trying to
add representation of what this story actually
is with great acting great performances
great dancing i think that’s all you could
ask for one of the biggest standouts for me is
rachel zegler who is in her feature film debut
and i cannot wait to see what other movies she’s
going to be in next because she killed it as maria
as i loved every single scene that she was in
along with ansel elgort who was also great in
the movie as tony but the biggest standout
has to be ariana dubose as i think she will
probably be nominated for best supporting
actress at the academy awards because she
was triumphant she was so good as anita and it’s
really awesome to see that she could definitely
win this award just like the original anita
won for best supporting actress one of the best
aspects about this movie is the screenplay
because i love the direction that they took
this story because it is very similar to the play
and it actually is considered a little bit more
accurate to the play than the original 1961 movie
was but i also like a lot of the changes they made
to the story as i actually think they improved
all the characters by even adding just some small
details to everybody now let’s dive into my one
negative that i do have with this movie which
is the same exact negative that i had with the
original 1961 movie and that is around after the
second act where there’s a big event that happens
and we’re trying to go into the third act and see
what’s gonna happen next i feel like that
this takes way too damn long especially
in this one i know it’s supposed to have
more emotional character moments and i do
appreciate those i don’t know if anyone
else has the same issue with the movie but
watching it both times in a row i just saw
it every single time and i definitely felt
out of the movie of sorts overall guys the
2021 west side story is a fantastic well-made
put together movie that has explosive musical
numbers amazing performances perfect directing
amazing cinematography that spielberg clearly put
his heart and soul into this movie as i feel like
this is one of his best movies he has made in
over 10 years or so making things better than
the original 1961 movie but also preserving every
aspect of why we love the original west side story
so i will be giving west side story a strong 8
out of 10 but could easily boost to a 9 out of 10
on further thought thank you guys so much
for checking out my review and i want to
know down below in the comments section what
is your top 10 favorite spielberg movies but
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