When I started this project I knew that the 60’s would be a difficult decade. See it features four musicals. Four musicals, and I’ve only seen one movie version of the four of them. Now I actually like musical theatre. But I am picky. I’m a fan of modern musicals and find the older musicals to be boring and lacking any true characters. They were written based on songs and not about plot or character development. The first of these movies was released in 1961 and is the one I have seen before. It is of course “West Side Story.”
“West Side Story” takes the basic concept of “Romeo and Juliet” and sets it in Manhattan. There are two separate plots that run through the movie. The first is the street war between the white American Jets and the Puerto Rican gang the Sharks. The movie depects the angst between the two gangs through spectacular dance sequences. While this is going on the story of Tony and Maria is told. Tony is a Jet and Maria is a Puerto Rican. The two of them fall in love with each other and are torn apart due to the outside pressure thrust upon them by the gangs. Soon a couple of gang members lose their lives and eventually Tony loses his as well when he thinks that Maria is dead and is shot. The movie ends with both Jets and Sharks carrying his body away.
The movie has a mixture of things that it does well and things that don’t work as well anymore. The story is great. After all it is based off of the work of Shakespeare, so it had a strong background. The songs are actually pretty good and except for “Pretty” all of them are still really good songs. “Pretty” is the most old-fashioned of the songs but it isn’t too terrible. Still it could benefit from an update. From an acting standpoint there isn’t too much to write home about. They all put in okay performances but several people are either too old to be playing teenagers, these are the better actors. And if everyone had been older that would be great, but half of the actors are young kids that can’t act. It makes for an uneven mess. Then there is the dancing. While it is iconic and the moves are great, it just feels silly. The dancing is in severe need of an update. I don’t mean throw it all out and have all the gang members start crumping, but maybe make the dancing a little more dirty.
Overall, “West Side Story” is a classic for a reason. It could use with a bit of updating but it definitely earned its Oscar and from me it has earned 4 out of 5 stars.
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