Steven Spielberg's West Side Story - Review Megathread

Rotten Tomatoes: 95% (8.60 in average rating) with 19 top critic reviews

Metacritic: 87/100 (28 critics)

As with other movies, the scores are set to change as time passes. Meanwhile, I'll post some short reviews on the movie.

It’s a wonderful musical, and an unabashed Steven Spielberg movie. And the moments in which it most comfortably allows itself to be both of those things at once leave you convinced that some harmonies are worth waiting for, even if it seems like they’ve been always been around the corner and whistling down the river.

-David Ehrlich, IndieWire: B+

West Side Story is contrived, certainly, a hothouse flower of musical theatre, and Spielberg quite rightly doesn’t try hiding any of those stage origins. His mastery of technique is thrilling; I gave my heart to this poignant American fairytale of doomed love.

-Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian: 5/5

Spielberg and Kushner clearly revere that history, but they’re also not intimidated by it; there are any number of instances where viewers can point to this song placement or that bit of character backstory as a new idea that the two have brought to the property, but this is a take on “West Side Story” that’s both reverent and exciting.

-Alonso Duralde, The Wrap

There’s no need for Spielberg and Kushner to tease out topicality here. Aspects of West Side Story feel as pertinent today as they must have done on its 1957 Broadway debut. But relevance is easy: timelessness is the real artistic feat. And Spielberg has magnificently pulled it off

-Robbie Collin, The Telegraph: 5/5

Heartfelt and heart-breaking, this feels like Spielberg has made an adaptation faithful to its roots but also, always, alive to the modern world.

-Helen O'Hara, Empire: 5/5

A solidly entertaining remake peppered with a few transcendent moments, Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story emphasises the musical’s most beloved elements without trying to radically reinterpret the source material.

-Tim Grierson, Screen Daily

When the very ground on which people live becomes uncertain, the necessity of passion—in love, in combat—becomes all the more apparent, and Spielberg’s fidelity to that sentiment, and to his own decisions, bears the vitality of this alternate take aloft.

-Ryan Swen, The Film Stage: A-

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PLOT

This reimagining of the beloved musical West Side Story tells the classic tale of fierce rivalries and young love in 1957 New York City.

BUDGET

$100 million

DIRECTOR

Steven Spielberg

WRITER

Book By Arthur Laurents

Screenplay By Tony Kushner

Reimagining William Shakespeare

MUSIC

Leonard Bernstein

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Janusz Kaminski

EDITOR

Sarah Broshar and Michael Kahn

Release date:

December 10, 2021 (wide release)

STARRING

• Ansel Elgort as Tony

• Rachel Zegler as Maria

• Ariana DeBose as Anita

• David Alvarez as Bernardo

• Rita Moreno as Valentina

• Brian d'Arcy James as Officer Krupke

Submitted December 02, 2021 at 09:21PM by denzel4684864 https://ift.tt/3Ip25QC